


Lupercalia

by Kendrene



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alpha Anya, Alpha Lexa, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternative Werewolf Lore, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon Divergent Season 1 Episode 03, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Masturbation, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Character Death, Omega Clarke, Werewolves, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 04:43:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 56,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6409270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While hunting for food with Finn and Wells, Clarke is separated from her friends as they try to escape a mysterious toxic fog. When she is attacked and almost killed by a monstrous creature, she will discover that those inhabiting the Earth have changed far more than the humans on the Ark suspect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Earth Kills

**Author's Note:**

> It's the first time I try my hand at werewolf/shapeshifting fiction so be patient with me. The idea came to me while reading a completely different kind of science fiction, but I will explain as the story goes on.
> 
> Kudos and comments are very much appreciated. If you see any mistakes, let me know and I will fix them! I always aim to improve my writing and your observations greatly help!
> 
> I hope you will enjoy.

_“Well don't go around tonight,_  
_Well it's bound to take your life,_  
_There's a bad moon on the rise.”_

_Bad Moon Rising_ – Creedence Clearwater Revival

 

“Run!” Clarke lets Wells and Finn rush past her and brings up the rear. The forest rushes by, the fading light of day stripped away by the encroaching fog. The air takes a sulfuric quality, and as she gulps it in, it makes her lungs burn with more than just the effort of their flight.

“Come Clarke!” she can barely distinguish Finn a few steps ahead of her, “I know a place!”

Her eyes water, she coughs and stumbles on an unseen root. When she regains her balance and looks ahead they are gone, and the fog is a threatening mass, pressing against her back.

Clarke doesn’t dare look back, and wills her legs to propel her forwards quicker. She has no time to wonder where the others disappeared to, she just knows she needs to find a place to hide, fast.

A swirl of the mysterious fog coils lazily across her path, and she instinctively throws an arm up, to cover her mouth and nose and shuts her eyes, as she rushes through it. Despite her precaution, she feels the vapor sting the skin on her hand and her cheek, as bloody sores part her skin.

She hisses in pain and her legs pump faster. An image of her body, flensed and corroded tumbles through her thoughts and Clarke’s mind shies away from its horror.

Her body begs her to stop, every muscle aflame, every gulp of air like a stab between her ribs, but she knows that would mean certain death, and she is not ready to give up yet.

Her eyes frantically scan the shadowed terrain in front of her for hidden dangers, should she stagger again, she has no doubt she would fall and she doesn’t think she could get back up.

When her demise comes, it is sudden. Her feet meet only air as she crushes through the underbrush and falls downslope, rolling head over heels in a helpless tumble. Her body meets rock and hard ground, is bruised and battered and cut open on jagged stone. Flashes of searing pain obscure her vision, as her hands frenziedly tear at the ground, seeking something, anything she can use to stop her fall.

She hits the bottom of the ravine hard, and comes to rest face up on a bed of pebbles and gravel. Every breath comes labored, and she believes at least some of her ribs are broken. There is blood In her mouth, and dripping into her eyes.

She tries to push herself to a sitting position, and her world becomes a sea of pain without end. A scream is ripped from her throat, then it dwindles to a soft whimper when she runs out of air. The darkening of her mind is almost merciful.

 

* * *

 

When her eyes open again, the sky is the paling gray of the hour before dawn. Clarke blinks several times, and with difficulty lifts a hand in front of her face. There is something wrong with her right eye, the vision blurred and warped and the dawn appears more like the setting of night.

She grunts, feeling a gash on her forehead with tentative fingers, it is deep and her hand comes away wet with blood. She thinks back to the apprenticeship under her mother and comes to the conclusion that her vision is blurred because of a concussion. There is not much she can do, out in the wilderness. She has no idea where she is, but her gaze travels up the looming slopes of the vale around her, and she knows there is no way she can climb back up to where she _was_ in her condition.

She thinks with a sardonic twist of her mouth that the fall is actually what must have saved her. In the growing light, she can see lingering strands of the toxic mist high above, near the edges of the gorge, but the wind blows stronger in the vale and pushes them away from her.

Slowly, every movement eliciting groans and sharp intakes of breath, she rolls onto her stomach and manages to lift herself on hands and knees. A stronger gust of wind, carries the sound of gurgling water and she realizes she came to rest next to a small stream.

Clarke tries to stand, but as she does the world spins around her, so she resolves to crawl to the water. She glances back and notices she is leaving a trail of glistening blood on the rocks. Hopefully she can wash herself enough to avoid drawing wild animals, but she needs to find shelter, especially since she does not know whether the fog will be back.

She assumes it could be a weather change brought about by the bombs’ fallout; they knew so little of the ground’s condition up in the Ark after all. Sending her and the others down has been a desperate gambit more than a well thought plan.

Her hand goes to her wrist and her eyes widen in panic, as she discovers the wristband, her only contact with the Ark above, is gone. It must have snapped open during her fall. She turns her head to one side then the other, her good eye straining to catch a glimpse of it among the rocks. The sun is slowly rising above her, as she busies herself with the desperate search, but the dale’s side she is on remains shrouded by the last touches of night, and she cannot spot it. She feels a cold emptiness invade her, at the thought that her mother will believe her dead. Tears sting her eyes, and she inwardly rages at the irony of the situation.

She had opposed Bellamy’s claims they should remove their bracelets strenuously, and never thought she’d end up losing hers so stupidly. It was her most prized possession here on Earth, along with the small shiv, fashioned from a piece of the drop ship hull that Wells had given her as they set out on their hunting trip.

That’s gone too, somewhere along the slope, and she tries to tell herself she doesn’t feel its absence keenly because of who gave it to her, but for the more practical reason of being defenseless in the wilderness. Sweat trickles between her shoulder blades as the intense feeling of being watched almost sends her into blind panic, and she struggles to keep control as her muscles twich and spasm, itching to send her fleeing. She is utterly lost, and it terrifies her.

She drags herself to the water’s edge, scraping the palms of her hands raw on the gravel, and sinks them in the water with a sigh of relief. It is so cold it sets her teeth chattering, and its frostiness lines every cut and scrape on her skin, numbing the pain a little.

She splashes her face, and rinses the cut on her brow, wincing. Her eye seems to be faring a bit better, and she hopes the damage won’t be permanent. A soft thud to her side draws her attention. She watches as a piece of flotsam is carried towards her by the current, and when it is close enough she wraps her hands around one end and pulls it out of the stream, almost falling backwards in the process.

Clarke smiles thinly as she surveys her catch. Maybe she isn’t completely out of luck. The gnarled piece of wood is long enough she will be able to lean on it as a walking stick, and it seems the water hasn’t rotten it yet, so it should hold her weight.

She puts her thoughts into practice, leveraging it against a bigger boulder, and ever so slowly pulls herself upright. It seems to take forever and burning agony jolts down her spine, but finally she finds herself on her feet and can breathe a bit easier.

She looks around, trying to find the least challenging path and decides to follow the water back into the woods. The sun is warming the air a little, but Clarke remembers how cold it was as she and the others were escaping the fog, and she is more likely to find branches and leaves to start a small fire in the forest.

A thick enough copse of trees will provide shelter from the frigid wind, and she will have water at least, if not food. She has seen berries and tubers that looked edible enough, but much of the flora is different from what she studied in books and she’d rather not spend the night vomiting, or worse.

Her mind made up, jaw stubbornly set, she totters off towards the tree line.

 

* * *

 

It watches as the girl stands unsteadily, its burning gaze following until she vanishes from view, She will not escape it, her and the others that came from above much softer and weaker than the forest people. They are like unwary, newly born deer, ripe for the taking. It and its brothers will feast on them all.

It takes its time, and leisurely stalks up to where she knelt. The tang of her lifeblood is so strong it almost sends it into a frenzy and it drops on all fours and licks the still wet fluid, slobbering all over itself and the ground.

Its talons rend the earth, and it fills itself with her scent until it is unable to resist its urges longer, and runs after her in utter silence, scaling a tree trunk with inhuman ease and disappearing into the foliage above.

It does not take the hunter long to catch up to her. She is injured and cannot cover much ground. It finds her resting upright against an old oak, and stops right above her, observing her and savoring the moment before the kill.

She is a young thing, and the flesh left uncovered by her ripped clothes, appears tender and delicious. It opens its maws in anticipation, and strings of saliva softly spatter on the girl's head. She brings a wondering hand to her brow then looks up, and it drops on her with a feral growl.

She has the time to shriek once, before its claws dig into her arms and throw her to the ground. It is on top of her in a flash and its jaws snap shut on her shoulder, piercing the skin and the muscle beneath.

The girl struggles under it and screams again, then the shock is too great and she falls silent as it prepares to devour her alive.

 

* * *

 

Gustus lifts his muzzle to the sky and sniffs the wind with relish. In this form he is a grizzled male, thick set and powerful, just as he is when the wolf is locked inside him and the numerous scars that decorate his back are lighter lines on his smoke-gray fur. The wolf remembers his other form, as the man knows the wolf and both are fiercely loyal to his charge. Gustus will have to return to the two-legged life soon, and to her. Already the strange feeling that precludes the shifting is growing in his belly.

The wolf growls and shakes his great head, snapping his jaws at the empty air to deny the sensation. Gustus seldom can enjoy to hunt in this form, and he struggles to quench the call of his original one, as he wants to savor every remaining moment, just as he did enjoy sating his hunger on the deer he brought down when the sun was still sleeping behind the mountain.

The shriek and the wrong, foul smell of a Twisted One reach him at the same moment, and everything else is forgotten as burning hatred engulfs him.

The wolf races on, baring his fangs in a silent snarl as the stench grows, driving him into a mad fury. If he was in his other state he would ready his sword, but tooth and claw will have to do. He does not stop to consider he is alone, just acts, as is the wolf's nature. The wolf lives in the now, and has no time for careful consideration.

The rest of the pack is off to the east, but some of them have retained two-legged form and he knows one is close. She is an Alpha and together they may be able to kill the abomination.

He would give his own life if it meant one less of these monstrosities roaming their land.

The thing comes into view, crouched low. It is dipping a clawed hand into the wound it has opened on its victim's body and voluptuously sucking the fingers clean. It hears Gustus come, but it is too caught up in its feast to turn, or perhaps senses there is no pack and discards the lone beast's menace.

The wolf goes in low, claws racking bloody paths into the Twisted One's back, jaws snapping shut around a bicep, dragging the monster back from its prey. The Twisted One rears back with an angered howl and swats the wolf away. He tumbles back, and lands on his back paws, gathering himself to spring into motion again. Gustus leaps, but the Twisted One is faster and its hand closes around the wolf's throat, and it uses the momentum to fling the animal over its shoulder and into the trunk of a tree.

“Gustus!” The Alpha's throw is near perfect, and her spear pierces the Twisted One's chest, casting it back a step. It screams in rage and pain, and hunches over its wound, grabbing at the lance's haft, still quivering in its flesh and yanking it out with a roar.

Blood fountains from the hole and the monster's stench becomes almost unbearable. The woman's hand quickly goes to her back and she draws her steel, crouching in a defensive stance. The wolf, Gustus, pushes himself up on shaking limbs, a new gash open on his back that will no doubt become another scar, and lunges forward, powerful maw grasping the meat at the back of the abomination's knee, fangs sinking into bitter flesh.

The wolf shakes his head from side to side savagely, rending the muscles and tendons, and the monster's crippled joint collapses under its great weight. The Alpha steps inside the Twisted One's reach, a war cry on her lips and plunges her blade to the hilt into its neck, twisting it cruelly before ripping it out in a shower of gore.

The man-beast seems to crumble under the fatal blow and lists lifelessly to the side, before crashing to the ground. Its blood coats her blade and whirls of steam rise from the metal. The warrior quickly rubs the viscous fluid away with a rag, before it can dent the steel, then sheathes her weapon.

“You fool,” she mutters, briefly touching the wolf's head, “if anything happened to you, Lexa would have my hide.”

Gustus nuzzles into her hand reassuringly, then settles on his haunches, golden gaze fixed on the Twisted One's prey. It is a young girl, caked in dirt and blood, and she smells like one of those that fell in the great metal box, from the sky above. All of the newcomers are young, and even though they do not smell as wicked as the Twisted Ones or the men of the mountain, their scent is not one Gustus has ever sensed before, familiar yet cold and distant as if they came from an entirely different world.

The wolf, but mostly the warrior inside it, would lead a war band and hunt them down, one by one, but _Heda_ has forbidden it, preferring to observe and discern their intentions. She thinks they could be allies, but Gustus only trusts those of the _Trikru_ pack wholly, and the other clans barely.

The wind picks up and brings a whiff of the change brought on by the bite already setting into the girl. Gustus feels his wolf's hackles rise and snarls quietly.

“I will take care of it,” the woman's voice is gentle and tinged with sadness.

She bares a dagger from her belt, and kneels besides the unconscious girl, brushing strands of golden hair away from her face, almost tenderly.

“ _Yu gonplei ste odon._ ”

The wolf lowers his head, Anya is doing the girl a great honor.

The dagger flashes towards the stranger's throat then the woman freezes, her eyes suddenly pointed at a spot behind Gustus. The wind changes direction again, and the wolf's nose is filled with the scent of his _Heda_.

Without looking, he rolls onto his back, exposing his belly in utter submission. A lean, black she-wolf pads silently to the male, eyes burning with green fire, and licks his throat before moving on to Anya.

The two Alphas lock stares for what seems like an eternity, then the woman nods in acceptance and the female wolf sniffs at the girl's wound, and laps at the blood oozing from the gash.

“ _Ai badan yu, Heda_.” The dagger disappears and Anya gathers the girl into her arms, standing and following Lexa back towards the rest of the pack.

Gustus spares a last disgusted look at the monster they bested, then follows slowly, the ache of a new wound on his back mixing with the frantic need to shift to human form.

Finally only the corpse remains in the clearing. It will spoil untouched, as none of the forest's other predators will dare feed on its poisoned meat.

 


	2. The White Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bite of the Twisted One has sickened Clarke. WIll Lexa and Anya's wills be enough to bring the wolf now lurking inside her to the fore? Will she survive the transition?
> 
> Meanwhile Wells and Finn are reunited with Bellamy, and the group makes a macabre discovery....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not completely sure I have the ABO dynamics completely clear in my head, so I hope you will point out any inaccuracies. I am having a lot of fun writing this and learning a lot of words I seldom used before in the process. My hope is, the reading will be equally entertaining for you.
> 
> As usual the wolves protect the kudos and comments tenaciously, and I treasure each and every one of them. You take the time to read what I write, and the thought is humbling and makes me very grateful. If you spot any errors, sound off and I will fix them!

“ _Everyone knew there were wolves in the mountains,_

_but they seldom came near the village_

_the modern wolves were the offspring of ancestors that had survived because they had learned that human meat had sharp edges.”_

Terry Pratchett – _Equal Rites_

 

The tent is big, but nowhere would be vast enough to contain her worry and the savage fury of her wolf. She feels her snap at the tight chains of control she has wound around her, and beads of sweat appear on her brow. Lexa frowns at the floor, then at Anya and Gustus in turn. Neither meet the green fire of her gaze.

The man actually seems to make himself smaller, no easy feat for such a towering warrior, while Anya stares stubbornly at the drawn curtain that hides the Commander’s sleeping quarters. Lexa can tell her rage is rubbing off on the other Alpha, as her hands clench and release at her sides, and her dark hazel eyes are flecked with gold, a clear sign her wolf is close to the surface. If the only other Alpha is so affected, Lexa cannot imagine what her anger must be doing to the small hunting pack of warriors camped outside.

With a gritting of teeth she suppresses her emotions further, pushing the snarling wolf back, and her pack mates visibly relax.

A moan of pain drifts through the curtain and her pacing abruptly stops, then she turns and starts towards the source of the noise. Gustus is in front of her in a flash, placing strong hands on her shoulders, and lifting them immediately, as if scalded, at the warning growl that rises from her throat.

“Move aside.” She orders, but he holds his ground, his eyes wary and pleading.

“ _Heda_ ,” his tone is soft, cajoling, “allow me to deliver your mercy.”

“I said, _move aside,_ ” he shakes his head, and her wolf again bares her teeth inside her, snapping and tearing at her restraints, aching to answer the challenge. Her green eyes slowly turn paler, not quite yellow.

“I must protect you,” he insists, unable to let the matter go, “if she turns rabid and wounds you…” Her hand shoots out and closes around his throat. Gustus is bigger and heavier, yet she almost lifts him off his feet with a strength enormous, for such a lithe woman.

“ _Shof yu op, Gostos,”_ she pushes him backwards a step, and comes so close to him, she has to tilt her head up slightly to meet his eyes. “Touch her, and I _will_ hurt you.”

A gentle pressure on her arm makes her whip around with a snarl. Anya’s fingers go around her forearm in a firm but gentle grip and, as always the touch of her mentor soothes her wilder side. The storm inside her abates, and she takes a shaking breath. The other Alpha doesn’t let go, subtly lending her strength, and Lexa is caught by the desire of running with her, hunt and tangle in the heart of the forest, like they have not done in such a long time, caught between the snapping jaws of Azgeda and the darker threat of the Twisted Ones.

“If you do, you will regret it.” Anya’s voice is the softest whisper, meant for her ears alone and Lexa knows she is right. The older woman’s wolf is wiser and less temperamental compared to her exuberant one, and she allows Anya to mollify her aggression. At times it feels like the years of training are not over, the time when Anya led and she went where ordered, before the older Alpha submitted to her willingly and she went on to rule not only _Trikru_ , but all the other clans. Almost all, she corrects herself bitterly.

She pushes the stray thought back. She will concern herself with the war when they return to Polis. She turns to Gustus, and her fingers trace the tattoo on his cheek gently. She is already regretting her outburst, and is pained as she sees her hand print on his bruised throat.

“You know why I won’t let you kill her,” she says, walking to a table and pouring herself water from a carafe. She watches him carefully above the rim of the cup.

He grunts. “You hope she will turn? Despite knowing what bit her?”

“I tasted her blood. If there was corruption, I would know.”

He snorts in disagreement, his voice a snarl of hatred, rough and raspy as he talks of their enemies, “Even if she shifts, she will never be one of us! You condemn her to be an outcast!” his tone deepens, and Lexa sees the wolf quiver inside him, shaken, “death is a kindness.”

“Their beast is a mockery, yet they bear the wolf’s mark, like us. It is possible she will shift without turning feral.” She remembers the girl’s blood coating her mouth, the irresistible will of her wolf, craving to pull the stranger under her protection, make her pack, _mark_ her as her own. Lexa had had no choice but to acquiesce, knowing that her wolf could be so stubborn at times, to border on open mutiny. There were enough struggles in the world around her, without sparking one within.

“There are stories,” Anya speaks up suddenly, and Gustus laughs in derision. Her eyes narrow dangerously, “you have listened to them too, at night, around the fires.” She finishes almost defensively.

He runs a hand through the mane of his hair, with an exasperated sigh, “I don’t mean to mock you Alpha, but they are naught but stories.” Anya’s only retort, is a quiet rumble.

“Even children’s tales contain a seed of truth,” the curtain is pulled back, and Nyko steps between them, his mere presence snuffing out the rising tension. He is of equal standing with Gustus, but where one wounds and kills for his Commander, the other heals and tends to the well being of the clan, his wolf quieter and much more peaceful.

He nods respectfully to them all and shrugs at Lexa’s unspoken question.

“I have done what I can for her. The wound is severe. The teeth ripped into muscle and should she live, she may be crippled.” He lowers his gaze, bracing for Lexa’s reprimand, and she closes the space between them, rubbing her shoulder against his for a moment, her gesture letting him know she doesn’t fault him for anything.

“Can she shift?” her wolf growls quietly, almost possessive.

“Alone? No. If you call to her wolf, perhaps.”

A long look passes between her and Anya. Both have done it sometimes for their young, when their will isn’t enough to entreat the wolf, or they are too scared to try alone. She sees in Anya’s eyes, the silent offer. She will do it for her, if Lexa asks, and face the girl alone if she goes feral. She blinks away the proposal and a word without sound forms on her lips. _Together._

She marches to the curtain, jaw set and feels the heat of Anya’s presence at her back. The older warrior growls at Gustus and Nyko both, and Lexa hears them leave the tent in a hurry. She doesn’t turn, eyes fixed on the sprawled form occupying her bed.

The girl is naked, soaked in the sweat of sickness. Covers lay in a haphazard heap to the side of the bed. Nyko must have tried to keep her covered and she has thrown them off in her trashing. The bandage swathing her shoulder is already soaked through with blood. Lexa halts on the threshold, struck and sickened by her agony. She has never seen so much pain enclosed into one person.

The tendons in the girl’s neck stand out like snakes twisting under the skin, and she opens her mouth, a guttural howl of anguish filling her air.

Lexa’s wolf silently howls in response, and if not for Anya’s steadying hand on her shoulder, she would double over and fall to her knees as every bone in her body vibrates painfully in empathy.

Gustus bursts back inside, alarm painted on his features, and she shakes off Anya’s touch, rounding on him in a cold fury. She has to struggle briefly with her wolf, and almost loses the battle shifting on the spot. Only the knowledge she would not be of any help to the girl that way, keeps her in human form.

“Guard us with your life, _pakstoka_ ,” she points to the tent’s entrance, “ _gyon au nau_.”

He fights with himself, torn between his vows and the natural urge of his wolf to protect the Alpha at all costs, but in the end he bows formally, hand on the hilt of his sword and marches outside, planting himself in front of the tent. She catches a glimpse of him snarling at anyone steering too close, before a gust of wind blows the tent’s flap between them, hiding him from view.

“We must hurry,” Anya says, and the heavy tang of the girl’s blood hits them both. Lexa only nods and in unison they go to her side.

 

* * *

 

“Gone?” What do you mean, _gone_?” Bellamy feels something close to panic seize his throat. He has not felt so impotent since Octavia was found and taken from him by the Guard. He elected himself leader, he’s supposed to know where his people are, but first Atom and now Clarke have vanished. The forest suddenly feels too close and menacing, its quiet deceptively peaceful.

“We mean gone,” Wells glares at him, “she was right behind us, and when we found shelter and got inside, we realized she had disappeared.”

“You should have…” Before the sentence is completely out of his mouth, Wells has grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and is shaking him. “Don’t you _dare_ tell me what I should have done, Blake,” his anger is all the more striking because he does not scream into his face, or punch him like some others would, but Bellamy is conscious of the shaking hands grasping him, and their ferocious strength as they almost tear the front of his jacket apart.

“Enough, both of you,” Finn interjects. He pries Wells away slowly, and the fight seems to go out of him as his head clears, “arguing won't help us find her. I can retrace our steps and...” He falters as a thin, ghastly moan bounces off the nearby trees.

They all turn in a circle, eyes searching, fists tightening around their meager arsenal. The sound comes again, weaker this time, and Finn shoulders his way through the bushes, snapping branches out of the way in his haste. The others have no choice but follow, Wells trying to slow him down, and Bellamy cursing him for a fool.

When they reach the source of the noise, they wish they had not. The stench of cooked meat fills their nostrils and they cover their mouths and noses in a vain attempt to stave it off. Atom lies on his back, his skin horribly pockmarked, the bloody muscle and sinew beneath showing through in several places. One of his eyes is milky white with cataracts, the eyelid gone, melted down the side of his face, the other circles endlessly with terrible pain, the pupil so contracted it is almost invisible. He hears them though, and feebly croaks something, trying to turn his head.

Bellamy fights down the horror and kneels next to him. He pulls out his canteen, and tries to drip a trickle of water into his gasping mouth. Atom swallows some, then coughs and brackish fluid wells up his throat and amid them what look like scraps of bloody flesh. Bellamy pushes a trembling hand behind his head, helping him up a little, so the gore dribbles down his chin, and nausea hits him when he realizes his friend is bringing up parts of his lungs, corroded by the fog.

Atom manages a breath and his remaining eye fixes into his own.

“Kill...me....” the whisper is barely audible, almost lost in the sigh of the wind, but he would have understood by the silent plea he sees, filling Atom's eye. He thinks. If he stares into him too long he will go insane with the knowledge of his pain.

He reaches inside his jacket, for his switchblade, and sees a flash of relief in his friend's gaze when it comes into view. His head lolls back in Bellamy's grasp, and he lays him back on the soft grass, as gently as he is able. He grips the knife, and licks his lips. He has shot a Chancellor, yet finds he cannot bring himself to give Atom the release he is begging for.

Finn's and Well's gazes seem to burn holes into him.

“Go on,” he mutters gravelly, “I'll catch up to you.”

He feels Finn's hand squeeze his shoulder briefly, then the others depart, crashing through the underbush, and he is left alone with the dying Arker and his own fears.

Atom's hand grabs his wrist weakly, and he almost jumps out of his skin. The flesh is hot and soft like it would be after a long bath, and when his fingers release him, long streaks of grease and bloody fat stain his jacket.

“ _Please....”_

“I am sorry,” Bellamy stands so abruptly the forest spins around him for a second, “I can't.” The knife falls from nerveless fingers and hits the ground with a soft thud, as he turns tail and runs away as fast as he is able.

Atom's weak, desperate whimpers seem to hound him for a long time.

 

* * *

 

They come for him at nightfall, skulking low, empty bellies almost scraping the ground. Maybe they feel the shame of their grotesquely twisted bodies, or perhaps they fear the forest has eyes and ears to watch where they go.

They have felt the death of one their kin at the hands of the hated wolves, and it makes them wary and angry, but the hunger tramples everything else, even their safety.

There are three of them, half men, half wolves, muscle bound bodies grown abnormally big, spines hunched and piercing the flesh, fur as hard as iron covering strong, cruel limbs. Their faces are human enough, yet the eyes belong to famished beasts and their mouths are elongated snouts that cannot close, stuffed as they are with too many razor-sharp teeth. They circle the dying boy for a while, snapping and snarling at each other, before the boldest one stalks forward and looms over their meal.

They crowd around him then, almost shoulder to shoulder, their shadows blotting out the stars and one of them spots the glint of one of those metal teeth the soft newcomers like to wield and hunt with. It picks it up and sniffs at it curiously. Its tongue flicks out and licks along the blade, and the lingering taste of fear sends it into spasm of ecstasy.

Without thought it plunges the blade into the boy's midriff and begins to cut him open. It is a small mercy the prey's vocal chords ceased to function hours before and he cannot scream.

 

* * *

 

 

Clarke is burning. She feels like an unseen hand has peeled off her skin, and is rearranging her muscles and bones. She flails around, limbs caught by sudden spasms, and her throat is raw and bloody with the constant screams that are ripped out of her very core. Her back arches, until she feels like she will snap in two, then her muscles relax completely and she collapses in a heap so violently her teeth click shut, and she bites her tongue.

Her shoulder pulses in time with the thrumming of her heart beneath her rib-cage. She is vaguely aware that someone, a man she thinks, cleaned her wound and sewed it shut, but she has popped the stitches with her trashing, and she feels warm blood pool under her. Everything hurts, the mattress beneath her, the covers they bundled her in, the pillow on which her head rests. She has managed to kick the blankets away, a small relief, but even the soft breeze blowing across her nakedness sets her nerve endings on fire,

Every cell of her body is rioting, her senses so overloaded that her brain is trying to shut down. She cannot tell where she is, as her surroundings are a hazy fog to her eyes, and light is like a blade, stabbing inside her skull.

Something cool presses against her cheek, and for the first time in what feels like an age, agony gives her respite. Clarke pieces the torn shreds of her mind together long enough to remember a scent, and the feeling of arms cradling her, taking her somewhere. A small whine builds at the back of her throat and she turns into what she recognizes as a touch. The bed shifts, tilting one side, then the other and the scent becomes stronger. Images fill her mind, splashes of color and warmth that chase the pain into a corner. Towering trees, green leaves haloed by the gold of the summer sun, the crashing roar of a waterfall and the iciness of its crystal waters, the feeling of furred bodies entwined in a pile that speaks of safety and home. Clarke moans with want and longing, as something new yet familiar stirs inside her, stretches, shakes itself out. She feels another, different touch along her spine, this one hot like an open furnace and instinctively shifts back into it. Fingers trail along her jaw, down the side of her neck, her arms, hot and cold, and she knows the two sensations belong to the two different yet overlapping scents that mingle in her nose.

She feels a hand curl around the back of her head, gently lifting her up and a cup being pressed to her lips. The water is so cold it makes her gums ache, but her mouth is sandy and parched and she drinks avidly, tender fingers massaging her throat to help her swallow. New spasms send her reeling, and she rocks so violently, her hand strikes unseen flesh and the cup tumbles away, spraying icy water all over her.

She is held down and struggles, strength flooding her limbs as she fights to tear free. A new image fills her mind, a wolf, white as snow, eyes aflame with the blue light of distant stars. The wolf's hackles rise and she snarls at Clarke, at the pain, at the hands holding her against her will.

“She comes,” a woman's voice, husky and rough, says to the side of her.

Iron- like fingers clasp Clarke's jaw and turn her head forcefully, as a great weight straddles her. Two bright green eyes, specked with amber clear away the fog clouding her vision, and dig into her.

“Shift, my _pakstoka_ ,” the second voice is softer, but brooks no disobedience. An irresistible magnetism pulls at Clarke's souls, tugs at her loins. The wolf inside her leaps, fangs bared at her throat and she throws her head back and yowls.

 

* * *

 

“She resists me,” Lexa's voice deepens with anger, her fingers clamp down tighter, drawing blood from the girl's skin. She buckles and snaps and drools under her, and Lexa's eyes follow the mad dance of strained muscles under taut skin. She sees a strip of white pelt erupt in a narrow line down her belly, and knows she is close to turning.

She puts her face so close to the girl's, she can feel her blistering breath on her cheek.

“I am your Alpha!” she screams into the mutinous whelp's face, “I am your _Heda!_ You will _shift_!”

Her own wolf is livid at being challenged for so long, and her claws erupt spontaneously, scoring the girl's chest and arms. Anya growls at the girl, her beast adding her call and the reluctant pup is caught in the storm of the Alphas' will and buffeted by the gale of their wrath.

Suddenly the girl bolts to a sitting position, tearing out of her grasp, eyes mad with her own anger.

“I _am_ Clarke!” she shrieks, and Lexa feels the white wolf cower and watches as the shifting slows. She has never seen the like; the girl clings to her humanity like a castaway to a piece of flotsam in high seas, too stubborn and afraid to let herself go completely, and cede control to her wolf. Her own anger is only making her feel further threatened, and with an effort she reins it in, changing her approach.

“Clarke,” her murmur is husky and soft, the name unfamiliar yet pleasing on her tongue. “Clarke.”

The girl's blue gaze focus on hers, and gently, almost hesitantly the Commander encircles her shoulders and pulls her close. Anya snakes her arm around the girl's lower back, and both the Alphas press against her, feeling her tremble between them.

“It hurts.” she says simply. They feel her tense, as if she wants to pull away, but she has calmed some and stopped resisting her wolf so strenuously. Lexa knows she is filled with the scent of the pack.

She leans close, nuzzling the girl's neck, licking the soft spot just below her ear and is rewarded by a low whimper, as Clarke shifts more comfortably into her.

“We know,” Anya seeks the girl's hand and takes it into hers, stroking her knuckles with her thumb, “we are here to help.”

They feel her slump against their hold, and exchange a nod over her head. With deft movements, Lexa strips the bandages away, Clarke's half closed eyes follow, but she does not speak., or interfere The scent of blood incites their wolves, and they can wait no longer, succumbing to their desire to bring her into the pack.

She has resisted their calls longer than anyone ever before, and they will not stop until she has submitted, until she is dominated, and marked, and theirs.

Lexa bites first, as is her right, sinking her teeth deep into the wounded flesh and the girl groan of surprise turns into a scream of pain and release as Anya's canines break the skin on the other side of her neck.

Her breaths come in faster and faster gasps, she shakes and her skin seems to ripple with the movement of the muscle underneath. In a blur too fast to predict, her head dips, and her jaws clamp down on Lexa's arm, thrown across her chest to restrain her. The Alpha moans in surprise, the wolf inside her shivering with little shocks of pleasure, as rivulets of crimson and black, merge on their skin.

Unable to resist them any longer, Clarke's wolf erupts from her in a flurry of white pelt and snapping teeth. She shudders between the Alphas, then her hindquarters give way and she falls to the bed, already prisoner of exhaustion. The impression of Clarke's human teeth on Lexa's arm throbs deliciously, and the Alpha lets her beast out, midnight black curling around white, jaws trapping a muzzle playfully before she tucks Clarke's head securely beneath her chin.

Anya tangles her fingers in their pelt, stroking the sleeping wolves, in turn, savoring the girl's taste, feeling her scent change to become like their own. Lexa was right, there is no trace of corruption. She sighs contentedly and leans down, and a third wolf, the color of dark honey joins the dozing heap, rumbling soothingly.

Outside the pack howls in welcome, its heart wrenchingly beautiful song filling the forest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATIONS  
> shof yu op: shut up  
> pakstoka: wolf  
> gyon au nau: go on now


	3. Omega

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke awakens to find her body is one she does not recognize and Anya and Lexa finally realize why their wolves want to protect her so ferociously.
> 
> Meanwhile an unknown agency spins intrigue in the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading! I hope you will like what I am doing with the alpha/omega dynamic- Lexa will explain more in the next chapter I promise. 
> 
> AH, who knew wolves could be this fluffy?
> 
> Kudos and comments are as usual a treasured gift. If you see any errors, let me know! Your feedback helps me improve and always gives me new ideas.

_"I am the Alpha and the Omega,_

_the Beginning and the End,_

_the First and the Last"_

 

\- Revelations 22:13

 

 

_She runs, paws hitting the ground silently, claws digging deeply into the soft wetness of the earth. The night is dark, bur her eyes pierce the blackness without difficulty, every surface touched by the silver light of the full moon jumping out at her in stark relief. Clarke has never felt so free, every worry, all her fears forgotten, driven away by the sheer joy of the hunt._

_She throws her head back and great howls of unrestrained pleasure tear from the well of her throat. Her tongue lolls out of her mouth, and she takes the night into her jaws. It tastes of pine, musk and secrets yet uncovered, and when her gaze drifts to the stars, she finds even those have flavor. It is cold and bitter and a shard of pain seems to lodge into her heart. The forest shimmers around her for the fraction of a second._

No!

_She shoves the unwanted memory away and runs faster. She is alone in this part of the wood, but not afraid. The Pack is close, she cannot hear them, the roar of her own blood in her ears blotting out every other sound, but she feels them tangled in her fur, encased in the depths of her chest._

Her _taste on Clarke's tongue._

_A sudden heat engulfs her, spreading throughout her limbs, and she stops so abruptly, her talons rend wide burrows into the forest's floor. Dirt sprays into the air, dulling the white sheen of her pelt. She pants, head down and rests for a moment, dropping to the ground, rubbing her belly against moss and fallen leaves, filled with a burning want for something she can't name._

Someone.

_She remembers hands on her, two pairs, hot and cold, tender yet capable of violence. She rolls on the ground, kicking up a little whirlwind of dust. Her throat and shoulder ache, but the pain is dull, like something recalled but not actually present._

_Two yellow eyes regard her from the trees above, meeting her gaze, and she freezes quivering, every hair on her body trying to stand on end._

_She growls, softly at first, then her vision is hazed with scarlet and a great fury wipes away all reason. She wants to tear, to rend, to crack the bones of the thing in the trees and lick the marrow, to rip into it until nothing is left but the memory of flesh under her claws._

_It slavers down on her, the scent of dead flesh ripe with putrefaction filling her nose, and roars a challenge back before dropping down to pin her to the ground._

_Clarke howls, the terrible pain shooting through her shoulder shattering her into a million pieces even before its sharp nails tear her apart._

 

* * *

 

 

Anya sits cross-legged on the unmade bed, watching the white wolf sleep deeply. Lexa has left a few hours ago, called away by a scout's report and duty, reluctantly leaving the side of the newly born wolf. Her eyes had lingered on the sleeping pup until the last moment, to the point Gustus had almost had to drag her away by force.

_Now, that'd be something to see._ She thinks wryly.

Yet they both had known Clarke may sleep through the night and well beyond, and Lexa would be back in time to help with the confusion and fear she will surely feel.

As if on cue, the wolf twitches, giving a little yelp, its hind legs kicking weakly and her hand reaches out, stroking her belly, heaving softly under her touch. She leans down, her fingers digging into the fur and finding the spot on the side of the neck she bit earlier. Her mark is hidden by the candid pelt, but she could find it blindfolded. She presses on it gently, then slightly harder, kneading the flesh underneath and the wolf quietens down.

Anya rumbles deeply in her throat, the tone soothing, lulling Clarke into a more profound slumber.

Clarke has shifted slightly in the throes of her dream and Anya's eyes are drawn to the glistening gash that mars the white perfection of her fur. Her wolf crouches low inside her, as if ready to leap on a prey. She thinks back at the Twisted One she has killed with her sword, recalling the clean throw of her spear, the solid thud against its chest, the spray of stinking blood, yet the wolf is not sated. Anya knows she would rend the ghastly flesh again and again, and Nyko's words about the girl's wound anger her further.

The white wolf senses the hurricane inside her, and trembles under her touch. She buries her face into the soft pelt and inhales deeply, letting the girl's scent fill her. A sky filled with stars, unlike any she has ever known, somehow still familiar. The clean, brittle scent of snow covered land, and mingled with it all, her own essence and Lexa's, above the typical smell of pack. Her wolf grumbles contentedly, even as she goes stock still and pieces of a puzzle that have been nagging at her long before she bit into Clarke's neck, are slotted into place.

The girl bleeding out slowly on the grass, Anya's sadness and anger at having to end such a young life.

_Yu gonplei ste odon._

Words leaving her throat with finality, the knife descending in kindness and, as Lexa appeared in the clearing, her own wolf clawing at her insides, howling for her to stop.

_Omega._ Her wolf and the Commander's had recognized the embryonic one awakening inside the girl even before the shadow of the idea was formed by their human part. They had been acting on instinct all along, and the fierce desire to keep Clarke from harm, akin to that which she feels for the other pack-mates, but ten times stronger, finally makes sense to her. She wonders if Lexa has been already hit by the epiphany and is rushing back as these same thoughts fill her head.

Her hand tightens on the wolf's fur, and she feels herself transported back to a time of pain and darkness, when the clan had almost collapsed, eaten itself, as one of its fundamental constituents had been taken from them. That had been the Ice Queen's plan: strike where nobody expected. They had all anticipated she would try to kill Lexa or her, but Nia had shown to be much more subtle and blindsided them all.

The morning they discovered Costia had disappeared from Polis is as clear to her as the day that just passed. She and Lexa had been returning from a series of campaigns on the border, repelling assault after assault while the fires of the _Azgeda_ raids were so numerous that they turned night into a perpetual sunset. They had thought her safe in the Capitol, surrounded by trusted warriors. Yet somehow, she had been whisked away under their noses. She does not want to linger long on how she was returned – her wolf gnashes her teeth then howls in sudden fury.

Wounds that she thought close, but were just crusted over with a thin scab, reopen, and she feels tears sting her eyes.

Anya never cried for Costia, feeling she had to stay strong for Lexa's sake, but now, alone with someone that knows nothing about the bloody history of the Pack, that doesn't see her as Alpha, her wolf angry and raw at what has been done to the girl, she curls up against her, burrowing deeper into the while landscape of her pelt and allows sorrow to contort her features.

Her wolf shakes inside her with silent grief, then the steady rhythm of Clarke's breathing against her ribs becalms it. She sees it in her mind's eye; the great brown beast sits erect, golden eyes fixed on the white one sleeping at her feet in silent vigil. The pain eases and, even though it will never be forgotten, a healing she did not know she still needed, begins to stitch her heart back together.

 

* * *

 

Clarke wakes into a body that isn't her own.

She tries to move her legs and arms, but nothing seems to happen, and she thinks maybe it is one of those lucid dreams where one is not truly sleeping, but no matter what they do they cannot rouse themselves. She tries to talk, opening her mouth wide, but words refuse to form and only a grating gnarl comes out. The memory of the dream clamps down on her throat and the sound is strangled out of her. She becomes aware of the terrible pain that cripples her, remembers long fangs tearing at her meat, a beast whose countenance her brain refuses to recall, gorging itself on her flesh.

She wills her legs to push upwards, the whiteness of agony creeping into her vision, and makes it to all fours, before the rent on her shoulder sends a jolt of molten flame down her spine and she crumbles back on the bed with a squeal. Her gaze is drawn downwards and she finds herself looking at powerful paws, white fur. _The concussion must be worse than I thought,_ she tells herself.

Strong arms tighten around her, hold her and a scent she remembers vividly hits her nose. A woman's face appears, hovering just above hers, inscrutable eyes softening into warmth as they meet hers, honey-colored tresses cascading down from her shoulders, forming a canopy around them as she bends down to rub her nose against Clarke's.

Without thought Clarke licks her face.

_Wait. What?_

Her eyes narrow and a low sound, like distant thunder, starts deep inside her chest. She fights her reluctant mind into submission and is flooded with terror. The last thing she truly remembers is fleeing with Wells and Finn, then falling. After that, everything turns into a knot of pulsing pain, and in its midst, yellow eyes rimmed with cruel orange regard her with insatiable hunger.

"Nothing will hurt you," the woman's voice is a growl, the menace not directed at her, but at enemies unseen.

Clarke's fear recedes and she knows her words ring true, but she cannot tell why.

She feels the woman's hand stroke the top of her head reassuringly, and her body releases a tension she didn't realize pervaded her muscles.

She wants to ask what is going on, but her tongue seems to have forgotten how, so she lets the woman's presence seep inside her, like water filling every crevice of her being. It is not long however, before she becomes aware that another scent, another touch, for which she longs just as much, are missing.

 

* * *

 

The clearing is an abattoir. A discarded rib cracks loudly under Lexa's boot as she picks her way gingerly to the corpse, or what is left of it.

Gustus is a dark cloud of anger at her shoulder, and she feels much the same way. She bares her sword with one fluid motion and with its tip, rolls over the head laying face down on a heap of dead leaves.

Except the face is gone.

“They grow bolder,” he mutters unhappily, “they are testing you.”

Lexa shakes her head, then pinches the bridge of her nose as the stench makes her eyes water.

“No. They are testing _them._ Or rather picking off the weakened ones.”

She clicks her tongue frustrated. There is not much she can do to stop the Twisted Ones from preying on the young people Clarke belonged to. Her resources are not infinite, and the villages and the safety of the borders come before a group whose intentions are not clear. Maybe the girl will help her understand.

Part of her wants to believe they can be trusted, but _Azgeda_ 's deceits have hardened her heart. She crouches down and her fingers find a scrap of the boy's jacket, so similar to the one Clarke was wearing when they found her.

Her wolf paces inside her impatiently, urging her to go back to the girl, and leave this sorry place, yet she feels like she owes the remains at least the fire and burial. These are her lands, and she should be able to protect them, although Gustus would argue with her that these people are not pack and don't deserve their time.

_But Clarke is Pack, and she will care._

She is about to give the order, when the bite on her arm throbs unexpectedly and she squeezes her other hand over her bicep, hissing in surprise.

“What is it. _Heda?_ ” Gustus' concern wraps around her like a blanket in cold weather. Everything crashes down onto her head.

“We have to go back,” she manages through gritted teeth, “she is awake.”

_And she is our Omega._ But that she doesn't say, even as her heart and her wolf's leap in unison.

 

* * *

 

The room is deadly quiet, the bluish light of the wall map casting livid color across their faces. For a time they just stare at the tiny, unmoving dot that marks the fall of Thirteen.

The man leans back in the chair, his freshly pressed suit creaking gently.

“I am tired of cleaning up after your messes,” he states coldly.

“ _Our_ messes,” she corrects testily.

He shrugs. “Still. You promise results, but it seems you are only good at delivering with words.”

Her voice heats up, eyes burning like dark stars in the gloom. “Science takes time to be refined...” she starts. He jumps to his feet, grabbing at a stack of papers on the desk and throwing it in her direction. They fly all over the place.

“ _Time?”_ I am tired of waiting for you to magically deliver what is rightfully ours!” He advances on her and puts his hands on the armrests of her chair, looming down. She does not seem intimidated,

“I would like you to have a team recover the specimen,” she says calmly.

The fight seems to go out of him, and he rubs a hand tiredly over his face.

“Why? What's the point?”

She taps a finger on the black folder sitting next to her elbow.

“It was feeding before they killed it. The readings are.... _strange_.”

He just stares at her, then sighs and shrugs, resigned. “Fine. But get your act together, or I will find someone to replace you. Plenty of people in line.” It sounds like a threat. It probably is.

He turns sharply on his heels and leaves, slamming the door shut. She resumes her study of the screen, absentmindedly scribbling on a piece of paper. She knows a breakthrough is close. She _knows._

 

* * *

 

By the time they get back to camp, she is panting, her heart hammering with the effort of keeping her wolf from coming forward. Joy and fear course in equal measure through her veins, as her beast's claws tear down the walls she built around herself after she lost Costia.

The wolf is tired of hurting. She wants herself, and Lexa, to be finally healed. Yet, as she nears the tent her feet drag, and inside her turmoil grows so strong she starts shaking. The warriors around her sense her mood, and lower their heads, shying away from her, even as they ache to give her comfort.

She takes a shaky breath and the aura of Clarke's pain shatters any doubts, her wolf rising so violently that her eyes change into a riot of green and gold. She storms into her tent, fighting with her sword's belt buckle and practically throwing the weapon to the floor. She rips the curtain open and Anya lifts her face from Clarke's fur, just as the wolf's eyes snap open and she becomes suddenly alert. Lexa shrugs off her armor and moves forwards, green-gold gaze never leaving blue, and she sits on the edge of the bed, reaching out but not quite touching Clarke's head.

“I did not believe either at first,” Anya murmurs gently, taking her hand and bringing it to her mouth, brushing her lips against the tips of her fingers. Clarke watches them both and Lexa sees confusion and a trust the girl feels, but is unable to explain, wage war in her gaze.

Her eyes flicker to the gruesome wound, and her fingers entwine with Anya's.

“She cannot hunt in this state and the wolf needs blood to abate.”

She reaches down with her other hand and ruffles Clarke's fur. Big blue eyes regard her with vivid intelligence. There is fear too, but the girl is pushing it down with all her strength.

Lexa stands and immediately Clarke lets out a sorrowful whimper. Guessing her purpose, Anya holds her still. Soon enough, the Commander returns, holding a blade.

“Would you?” she offers the weapon to Anya, holding it by the hilt.

The older woman nods, then slices the proffered palm open, before doing the same with hers.

Lexa's other hand clamps down on the scruff of Clarke's neck and she guides the girl's muzzle towards the waiting sacrifice.

She feels her resist for a moment and she growls deeply and shakes her slightly. A stray thought rushes by quickly, about Costia liking to push her authority the same way and she almost lets out a sob. The feeling of Clarke's tongue on her skin is like a balm, and the two of them press the trembling wolf between them as they did once before. Howls so desperate Lexa wants to cover her ears, emerge from Clarke's throat, then there is a wet sucking sound, the snap of bone, a violent convulsion, and the girl is back between them curled in fetal position, drenched in sweat and crying.

“I will get Nyko,” Anya bounds off the bed and races out, as Clarke's ruined shoulder starts to bleed profusely, the scabbing that had formed while she slept cracked open.

Lexa pulls her into her lap, and the girl looks up at her amid an ocean of tears. The words she forces out between her sobs, make her heart ache.

“ _What_ am I?”

 

 

 


	4. Firebrand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After dealing with Clarke's wound and leaving the girl with Nyko, Lexa and Anya find a moment of quiet in the turmoil. 
> 
> Meanwhile at the drop-ship Wells and Finns have doubts about Bellamy's actions and decide to leave to find their own answers. Will Octavia agree to join them?
> 
> And what is the omnious Harvest, looming over them all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK- this chapter.... angst and pain and sin and some smut for good measure...there is just so much sin in me right now. And I am kinda nervous about the whole thing. Kudos and comments are appreciated and treasured- so are suggestions and questions! I have a blast replying to you all. Thank you for taking the time to read the story.
> 
> As usual, should you find any errors, don't hesitate to let me know and I will fix them.
> 
> Oh by the time this story is done, I will be so headed to Hell...
> 
> If you feel so inclined come howl with me on Tumblr: shadar17 Asks, prompts (I will write anything even the craziest stuff) anything goes!

“ _I often wondered how it would be to tramp off into the mountains and keep going until I was exhausted, then simply sink into the snow and fall asleep. Then the wolves could have me.”_

Patrick McGrath - _Trauma_

 

Clarke looks up at the green eyed girl through a veil of tears. She cannot stop the sobs that make her chest heave with little spasms. Her brain is trying to reconcile what her eyes have been showing her. The candid wolf, then her, in its place. The wolf and her. One and the same. It’s too soon for such a truth and her mind instinctively turns away from it.

There is a tenderness in her touch, a slight trembling that Clarke can compare only to fear. It feels like the woman is afraid that, if she held her more tightly, Clarke would dissipate beneath her hand, like the smoke of a morning dream.

A darker shadow lurks beneath the surface of eyes, so vibrantly green she is reminded of all the things that never cease to grow inside the forest. A soft hesitant hunger, mixed with the fear, a want that she feels mirrored in her own gaze, a wish to melt herself against this savagely beautiful stranger until nothing is between them.

She blinks and the tears are freed from her lashes, rolling slowly down her cheeks. She watches the woman's brow furrow in deep thought, a small crease appearing between her eyes as she tries to find words to answer her question. She opens her mouth, then seems to think better of it, and with infinite care, wipes a tear from the corner of her eye.

Clarke feels her insides twitch as her touches become more assured, and her fear ever so slowly relents. Her gaze is completely enraptured by the woman’s and, only when she hears others approach, she manages to rip her eyes away.

The other woman, the one that was with her before, has donned thick gloves and she is carefully carrying a lit brazier to the side of the bed. The yellow tongues of flame make her eyes glitter like gold coins. Following her comes a man, and she feels his presence like the sting of needles on skin, and the cool feeling of ink seeping slowly underneath. He smells of sweat and herbs, but before she can take a better look, her body spasms and her vision is stolen away, fragmented into a senseless jigsaw puzzle by white hot pain. Her throat is dry and grating and her scream is a strangled roar of animal fury.

When she can see again her eyes are drawn to the gaping wound on her shoulder. It is a wide, jagged gash and her trashing has only opened it further. Strands of half chewed skin leave the muscle below exposed and amid the gore she glimpses the dull, ivory gleam of bone. She does not understand how she is still conscious. Gentle fingers under her chin make her face turn away from the gruesome injury, and she feels something call to the white wolf buried inside her.

“Look at me Clarke,” her name is sighed, caressed and those slim fingers explore every line of her face, from the outline of her jaw, to her brow, along her nose, to brush like soft breath against her parted lips.

“You belong to us, Clarke.” the second woman has joined them, her countenance all high, almost cutting cheekbones and slanted eyes. Clarke is aware of the man moving around, of the soft _whisk-whisk_ of metal against whetstone and the scent of hot steel burning her nose, but her wolf is swept up, enthralled by their influence, and she cannot do anything else but stare at them.

She feels a bond between them, a hidden current that goes from one to the other and pulls them all together. Apart, yet one and the same, just like her and the white wolf are.

“Alpha, can I touch her?” the man's voice is low and kind. He speaks slowly as not to startle her.

“Careful, Nyko” the brown eyed woman almost barks, baring her teeth. The other just nods, and her fingers don't stop trailing on Clarke's skin. She feels the pain, but distant, as he probes the wound, then hisses when the sharpness of a scalpel bites her flesh. He cuts quickly, hands steady.

“Press this onto the wound,” Clarke feels a hand squeeze her shoulder hard, and the second woman leans down, pressing her more into the bed with her weight. “Almost there, child,” she says encouragingly.

Green-eyes looks up as he approaches holding a rod of metal so hot it is glowing an angry red, and Clarke follows her gaze. Her insides quiver with primal fear, the white wolf curling up into a corner of her being at the sight of the fiery brand.

“Bite down,”

Something that tastes like leather is pushed against her mouth, until her teeth are secured around it. The same fingers that grazed her face so lovingly, clamp her jaws shut around the object and she is held in place, like trapped in stone.

“Now.”

The weight on her shoulder disappears and incandescent metal replaces it. touching flesh. Blood is brought to a boil, fizzling and bubbling around the cut, as the muscle is burned, the hole forced into knitting back together.

The wolf howls endlessly, and Clarke screams around the gag, and whatever they made her bite on, snaps under the force of her teeth and she feels it cut her tongue. Her eyes are a wide abyss of agony, pupils reduced to pinpricks, the usually seamless blue broken by veins of amber.

She tries to push against the hands holding her down, then the smell of her own cooked flesh fills her head and she foams at the mouth, her beast slavering madly and the drool spatters down her chin in gooey strings.

It all seems to last an eternity, but is over in moments, and she slumps back, drained of strength. She feels a warm breath tickle her ear.

“You did well. Rest now.” Nimble fingers work her mouth open, removing the gag, which turns out to be a slender, leather-bound piece of wood, neatly snapped in two.

She watches through pain-slit eyes as the emerald-eyed woman cleans her face with a cold rag, murmuring gentle nothings as she works.

The other one places a hand over her still racing heart tenderly, and her quiet rumbling eases Clarke's tired body into drowsiness. The last thing she is aware of, before she drifts off into oblivion, is being cautiously lifted into someone's lap and the touch of adoring lips against her temple.

Lexa looks down at the girl she is gently cradling, face rendered slack by unconsciousness, eyes as blue as the brightest summer sky now hidden. Her wolf ascends with furious desire, to mark again and take her and she knows she needs to find release somewhere else, before she does something rash. She lifts her eyes with inhumane effort and finds Anya is staring at Clarke just as ensnared.

“We need to go, _niron_ ,” her tone is a growl, etched with lust. The other woman just nods and Lexa ever so gently disentangles herself from the sleeping Omega. Tearing herself away physically hurts, but her urge is too violent and Clarke is not ready, her trust thin as thawing ice in the first warm days of spring, a thing instilled in her by her wolf. The human side of her is like a startled animal, confused and lost and ready to bolt at the slightest mishandling.

Clarke _is_ theirs, but her love they will have to earn.

She looks over at Nyko as she stands and takes Anya’s hand.

“Take care of her until we return.”

“ _Sha, Heda_ ,” he bows, but they have ghosted out of the tent, before he has even finished talking.

 

* * *

 

He draws the razor carefully across his cheeks, along the sharp angles of his jaw, under his throat. The other hand follows, feeling the skin carefully for stubble. The electric light casts a harsh glare across his pallid skin, yet it does not extinguish the red embers burning at the bottom of his dark eyes. He rinses the blade under running water, then goes to remove the last of the lather from his chin and the wet hold he has on the handle of the instrument slips and the razor twists in his grip, parting his skin like paper.

He curses, throwing the blade into the basin with a clatter and, at the sight of blood, his nostrils flare with hunger. He is suddenly furious and grabbing the sides of the sink with his hands, he leans forward and roars a challenge into his own image. He sees the menacing flash of elongated canines as his jaws open wide, and a darkness stirs in him, threatening to drive him insane.

A loud _crack_ cuts his scream short and, looking down he is surprised to discover his hold has split the ceramic of the basin. He raises trembling hands, eyes darting from them to the surface below, crisscrossed by fissures.

Her arrogant face fills his thoughts and his hands ball into fists. He smashes them against the mirror, punching his mocking reflection until the looking glass shatters, slicing into his flesh with a spray of red. The bathroom dissolves around him.

_Thirteen is stretched out on a gurney, malformed body opened wide and emptied of its contents. He is glad for the hazmat suit that keeps most of the stench out. Still the smell of meat and entrails is almost overpowering. He needs more blood, and soon. Maybe it was a mistake, not accompanying the recovery team. He always feels calmer after he has been outside a while. A while. That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? They can never stay out long without protection, or rather, it's possible, but the price to pay is way too high, he muses as his eyes scour the cadaver for clues._

“ _Well?” His voice is a grunt of impatience, and he paces around the room, unable to stand in one place, waiting her leisure._

“ _I just finished a preliminary autopsy. He was killed by a sword thrust.” He snarls behind his mask, and she seems to find it amusing._

“ _The men that brought it back could have told you as much. I meant the other tests.” She shrugs, but he can see no apology in her eyes. “I need at least a week, maybe two to complete all the test runs.”_

_Time. She always needs more time. He gnashes his teeth, feeling some of the enamel come loose and powder his tongue._

“ _What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”_

“ _We will run out of blood soon,” things he already knows, “prepare another Harvest.”_

_He gestures to the corpse. “What about the others?”_

“ _Let them do what they do best. Fear always plays in our favor,” she pauses as hunger lights up her eyes, “maybe you can find a way to bring in one of those kids.” She draws the words out in a hiss._

“ _You know Father won't allow.”_

_Frustrated he slams a fist against the wall. Red rage surges at the corners of his field of vision. She walks up to him, and raises a bloodied glove, leaving a smear of crimson on the suit's mask._

“ _I know,” she pouts mockingly, “daddy never allows you anything.”_

 

* * *

 

They walk to the edge of camp, silent and tense, shaking with desire. It takes Lexa all of her self control not to retrace her steps and pull Clarke to her and just let her wolf have her.

Anya's hold on her hand tightens, almost painfully.

“I...” the older woman swallows, “I have not felt this way since...” her mouth runs dry of words.

A long look passes between them, then they plunge into the greenery, clothes abandoned in a chaotic heap. They run, barefoot and light, like the wisps that are said to inhabit the forest around them, and their bodies seem to shimmer and melt like mercury. Two wolves hit the ground, tearing through the underbrush at full speed, one black, one the hue of darkest amber. The forest closes around them, as they dart from shadow to shadow.

The black one skulks away and the other keeps running, fangs bared, golden eyes wary. She knows the game well. The forest is filled with sound, but all falls deadly quiet at the wolf's passage. No Twisted Ones dare enter this part of the woods and the other forest's dwellers have learned the hard way which is the biggest predator in these parts.

When she erupts from the cover of the trees, her ebony companion is upon her, front paws hitting her side so hard she tumbles away in the high grass. She shakes herself upright and the two circle each other, snapping viciously, swiping the air with their sharp claws.

Then the honey furred one lunges and her jaws snap shut an inch from the black's neck. Green eyes fill with warlike aggression and the two tangle wildly, before one breaks away, the other hot in pursuit. In the end, the brown one lets herself be caught, and when they flop back onto the ground, two women are panting hard, laying on their backs, eyes filled with all the stars in the firmament.

Lexa gulps in a great breath of the chilly air, the scent of musk and lavender heady like a good wine. Duty has been a burden upon them both, that has taken them away from the simple joy of running together as mates for too long.

She finds Anya's hand again in the grass and holds on tight.

“To think she comes from there,” the older woman points at the sky above, voice filled with reverence. Then she admits, so quiet Lexa has to strain to hear her above the murmur of the land around them, “I want her.”

Her wolf stirs and her loins burn at Anya's words.

“I want her too.”

She feels Anya's fingers gently pull away, and the woman turns to her side, her hand softly tracing lines up Lexa's arm, to her collarbone, then she cups her face and turns her head so that they are staring into each others' eyes. Anya's irises are almost swallowed by gold, and Lexa knows in her own, the green has been pushed to the outside by a nimbus of gold. Their wolves look out of them with an ache for the other that brings tears to press up against her eyelids.

“It's too soon,” Anya murmurs, her voice husky and aflame, “we need to ease her into the bond.” Still the desire for the white wolf burns inside them like the hot iron that seared her flesh.

Lexa's wolf won't be denied any longer and with a wet rasp she closes the distance, crushing her mouth against Anya's. Their kiss is a battle in its own right, as they nip at each other savagely, tongues dueling for dominance. Anya's hands entwine into Lexa's hair and she pulls her head back violently, sinking her teeth in the tender curve of her throat, pinching the pulsing vein right under the skin, licking it, seemingly melting her tongue into her.

Lexa roars in pleasure and anger, and slams her palms against Anya's chest, flinging her on her back. She straddles her, her hips canting into the other woman's, mounds colliding. They moan together, and the wolves inside them add their own voice to the union. Brushing a strand of hair from Anya's brow, Lexa leans down and kisses her again, slower this time, tenderly sucking her tongue into her own mouth.

“How about you ease into me for now?” she teases, nipping at Anya's swollen lower lip.

The only reply is a growl, then she is flipped over effortlessly and Anya's body blots out the stars. She straddles one of Lexa's things, and deliberately rubs her mound against the hot skin and supple muscle, leaving a trail of glistening arousal behind. Her other hand cups Lexa's sex and she squeezes lightly, causing her hips to buckle uncontrollably.

“Anya... _beja_ ,” she begs, not the Alpha here, or _Heda,_ just herself, bare and vulnerable and in so much need. There is no time for teasing and slow tender touches, their wolves want it all. Anya kisses her hungrily, breathing her in, her fingers parting her gently and sliding easily into her soaked depths. Lexa's own hand slides down her mate's stomach, and between her legs, where she pinches her clit lightly, forcing out a soft yelp. They rock into each other, their love making gentler but not less intense, and Anya's mouth traces fiery paths across her chest.

“I love you,” Lexa gasps out, as she feels their release closing in on them.

“ _Hodnes..._ ” Anya sighs against her heart, then she moves and her mouth finds the spot Clarke bit on her mate's bicep. Her mouth closes down on it hard, and they shudder in pleasure, a gush of wetness soaking them both.

As they come onto each other, the potent scent of their arousal mixing with the wild musk of midnight breezes, they feel Clarke’s wolf arise with them, and they are swept away all the harder.

 

* * *

 

She awakens slowly in the deepest part of the night, body tingling. The bed is empty. Their scent lingers in the sheets, in the pillows, and she turns her face into the fabric, inhaling deeply and trying to find a bit of comfort. A flash of white inside her stirs with yearning, and she shakes with it for a moment. A great, proud head looks upwards, azure gaze burning with cold fire, and it… _she_ reaches out from Clarke, looking, calling for them. Sensations crash into her in response; a moonlit meadow, bare bodies tangled in passion, slick skin and the caress of hungry mouths.

She _withdraws_ into herself, blushing furiously, even as the thing inhabiting her aches to be part of that so strongly her muscles clench.

“They will be back soon,” a voice, rough but gentle comes from the deepest shadows. Her head whips around, blue eyes narrowed as she tries to focus on its source into the murkiness. Slowly the shape of a seated man emerges from the blackness, more solid somehow than anything else around it. Dark brown eyes glitter with a hint of gold as they meet hers. Wolf’s eyes.

A memory comes to her from the fog of pain that still swathes her mind; he is the one that held the brand to her flesh. The bringer of fire. The beast inside crouches as low as possible, ears back, flat against her skull. Fighting with the burning agony racing down her back as she pushes herself on trembling elbows, Clarke frowns savagely at him, and a low rumble starts from her diaphragm.

He stands, stare hard as old bark and stalks closer, then he lowers into a crouch next to the bed.

“Easy, little wolf,” the words are crunched between gnashing teeth. His own growl fills the tent, the quiet grumbling of a faraway storm at first, that becomes louder as each moment passes. When the downpour is about to drench her, Clarke drops her gaze to the furs on the bed, inclining her head involuntarily so that her throat is exposed. A part of her knows the wolf inside is tugging at her strings now, guiding her into submission.

Fingers calloused by hard labor skate along her jawline in the briefest of touches, and just like that the tension dissipates. Clarke knows intuitively that she has his protection, and she will not challenge him. The white wolf won’t allow it. In her mind she sits relaxed as the silver pelted animal, nuzzles into her neck, before sitting shoulder to shoulder with her.

She manages to push her legs off the bed, and when she sways hit by nausea, his hand steadies her firmly.

“You really should not move,” he increases the pressure, trying to lead her back, but she shakes her head, eyes pleading.

“Please,” it’s all she manages to say, but she sees the horror of her nightmares echoed in the hazel depths of his eyes and he relents with a sigh.

“You won’t be an easy patient, will you?” When she tries to get to her feet again, his hand on her good arm tightens. “Wait here.” His wolf is suddenly standing over hers, and Clarke has to bite her lip to resist the urge of making herself as small as possible.

He disappears for a moment, and when he comes back he is carrying some clothes. The scent of green-eyes hits her at full speed and she grunts, bending over, beads of sweat dripping down her spine.

He does notice, but studiously ignores her reactions, setting about the task of helping her dress instead. Something tugs at the edge of her mind and the words just come out of her.

“She will be angry you touched her things.” Clarke’s words are not hers but the wolf’s. She knows it to be true. Green-eyes owns _everything_. She owns _her_. The last thought should scare her, yet she feels heat suffuse her limbs. He shrugs off her concern.

“Be as it may,” he replies matter-of-factly, “Anya is too tall for her garments to fit you fine.” He hesitates, picking up the shirt he brought and dropping it into her lap. “Lexa will rip me apart if anything happens to you under my care.” When he lifts his head, she can see the jab of fear stabbing at his features. It gives her pause, not the fact that he is afraid, which her wolf makes her take into stride, but her eyes, seeing so well in such darkness. She doesn’t remember ever seeing that well in the night. Dizziness makes her shake her head trying to clear it, and she wonders if this displacement will ever fade, or if she will be forever a battle zone, contested between her own humanity and the other being of pure impulse that shares her flesh.

Clarke knows everything is too new, too confusing and she is too hurt to make sense of it all immediately, so she allows the indigo eyes of the wolf to be her own for a while as the beast ushers her towards parts of herself yet unexplored.

With the man’s help, she shrugs into the sleeveless shirt, which seems to have been cut out for her. They have to leave it open, to accommodate for the thick lengths of linen wrapped around her right shoulder and torso. The pants are harder to tug on with one hand, and he has to almost lift her off the bed. Clarke feels like a child.

After the exertion, she is left gasping for breath. He waits patiently, a hand resting on her forearm. She should mind the closeness, the constant if unobtrusive touching, but she finds she can draw strength from it. Furrowing her brow she recalls how different everything was back on the Ark, much more…. _clinical._ The images of steel walls and closed spaces that crowd into her mind make it hard to breathe. Her wolf snarls and her claws dig scarlet rents behind her eyes. The sound of her cell door slamming shut behind her, sends the beast into a whirlwind of fury and snapping teeth. _I won’t be caged again!_

She does not realize she has whined the words until his fingers gently cup her chin and tilt her head up, so he can regard her solemnly.

“I don’t know what has been done to you, Clarke,” she does not remember telling them her name, but she likes the slightly accented way in which he says it, the consonants harder, the tone wilder than what she is used to, “but nobody will cage you again. I promise that.”

There is no shadow of doubt in his steady gaze and her heart calms.

“Put an arm around my neck,” he continues, sliding his own under her, “if you refuse to rest we may as well wait for them next to the fire.” As he lifts her up, the whiteness of his teeth flashes at her from the darkness. “You look cold,” his grin is impish, and it takes a moment for it to click: he must see as well as her, so he probably knows she was covered in goosebumps since she was naked in front of him. Sharp embarrassment makes the night’s chill decrease.

He carries her easily to the larger part of the tent, and she has to squint at the sudden brightness of fire. The flames are low, close to dying, but enough to make her eyes water after so much time spent in the dark. He sits her down carefully on the tent’s carpeted floor, with her back against a big chest, then eases with a sigh next to her in such a way that she can lean against his side a little. She keeps her injured arm across her midriff, it is the only way it doesn’t hurt as much, then a smirk curls her lips, they are sitting the same way in which she envisioned their wolves a few moments back.

In the uncertain light, she gets her first real glimpse of him. A bear of a man, wild in hair and beard, his scarred face a swirl of blue tattoos.

“You are Nyko,” she says slowly. He nods, and she continues, “thank you.” She glances down eloquently at her bandages.

“You are strong,” he grins again, and Clarke decides she likes him, “if I have to be honest I didn’t think you’d survive.”

The monster’s fangs sink into her mind again, if not her body and she shudders.

“Still,” she says carefully, trying to hide the tremor in her voice, “I saw the damage before you cauterized the gash. I may never use the arm properly again.”

Nyko sits straighter, eyes showing the white in astonishment. “You are trained in the Art?” It takes her a moment to figure out he is referring to healing and she says, “you could say I was an apprentice.”

A knot forms in her throat at the memory of her mother, who she will probably never see again, and her eyes mist over with sadness. Seeing her distress, he opens his mouth to change the subject, but before he can, the tent flap moves and a low, possessive growl fills the tent. The women crowd back inside, and Clarke is hit by the scent of sex so hard her wolf tries to launch _out_ of her, as she futilely presses a hand to her stomach.

Nyko stands slowly, stepping away from her, eyes to the floor.

“Lexa... _Heda..._ ” The growl only grows louder.

“I asked him to carry me to the fire,” it's a half lie, but it comes easy to her lips. When those unblinking green eyes turn to her, she instantly regrets attracting their attention. _The truth now_. She chides herself.

“I could not...” she falters, works some moisture around her mouth, tries again, “I could not sleep...” she lowers her own eyes and mumbles, “without you both.” Her face must be on fire, but her wolf howls her agreement.

Slim fingers curl a strand of her hair pensively and softly tug. Green-eyes... Lexa is crouched so low in front of her she is almost kneeling.

Clarke leans into the touch with a whimper, her pain and the memory of the attack smudged to nothingness by the women's presence. Lexa pulls her gently into her, and she buries her face against the side of her neck. They sit with her, Anya's hand rubbing circles on her thigh, before she too crowds close, leaning her head against her good shoulder.

“Will you answer my question now?” Clarke fights to keep her eyes open, and her wolf sits up, suddenly wide awake.

“You are Pack,” Anya lifts her head and feathers her cheek with a kiss.

“Omega,” Lexa breathes into her hair.

She has read something about wolves, enough to know that is the lowliest of the low in their hierarchy. Although, why do they seem so attached to her if that is the case?

They must see the confusion dimming the brightness of her eyes, because Lexa picks up again.

“Imagine a sword,” her arm tightens around Clarke, who naturally leans back into the heat coming off her, “you cannot wield a sword without hilt, or protect the warrior's hand without quillions,” she looks down expectantly at her, and Clarke tentatively guesses, “Alphas...you?” she looks to both and they nod.

“The blade so directed is formed by...” Anya trails off and raises an eyebrow.

“Betas?” She wishes she had paid more attention during those interminable zoology classes, but she never really thought she'd come to Earth, let alone _become_ part wolf, “but that still leaves me out.”

Lexa tugs her hair again, almost playfully, “think Clarke, what part of the sword we haven't mentioned?”

“The...pommel?”

Understanding floods her mind. The Omega is the counterweight, the balancing force, that aids the movement of the Pack where the Alphas direct it.

“So you see,” Anya completes, “there is no weakest wolf.” She nods, but her mind only burns with more questions. As she opens her mouth, determined to confront her darkest fear and ask about the creature that bit her, a yawn threatens to unhinge her jaw. The pain in her wound flares up and she winces.

“Enough for now,” Lexa's is a low grumble and Clarke is picked up, before she can even try to feebly protest, “we are with you now, so you can sleep safely.” She is looking at her, yet Clarke knows she is also talking to the wolf.

They take her to the bed with them, and in the dark gently take turns undressing her. When she feels them lay on either side of her, skin to skin, something inside her gives and everything she has been through since her father's death rushes up her throat. She clamps a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs, then feels gentle fingers pull it away.

“Let it out,” Anya whispers in her ear.

“Let it all go,” Lexa adds, arm tightening across her stomach. Clarke does, and they hold her long into the night until her tears are spent. When they finally fall asleep, so close and warm, she finds she can breathe easier than she ever had.

She isn't sure about what she is becoming, but it feels like she belongs. Whatever this is, it feels like _home_.

 

* * *

 

Bellamy walks around several fires before he spots his sister. The mood has been subdued since he and the others came back, two of the group missing. His mouth curves downward bitterly. By the time he caught up to Finn and Wells, he had smeared dirt all over himself, telling them he had piled rocks over the body, to build a small cairn. Thankfully they had not probed, or he would have been unmanned. But then, what else could he tell them? The truth ashamed him. How could he shoot a man in cold blood and not ease a friend's suffering?

He pushes these thoughts to the back of his mind and warily approaches Octavia. She is sipping something that looks suspiciously like Monty's brew and staring empty eyed into the fire. He wants to take the cup away from her, but refrains. He has not come to fight.

“I'm sorry, O” his voice is a gravelly croak. He stares down at his hands, aching to take one of hers.

She stands. Her eyes burn down at him like polished onyx, turned black by the pulsing light.

“You're _sorry_? You left him out in the dark, alone and you are sorry?” His heart jumps to his throat. Is his guilt so apparent? Then he realizes with relief and hot shame, she is talking about Atom's punishment for kissing her. “I wanted to protect you,” he protests weakly.

She snarls, and flings the liquor and the cup into his face, stalking away. By the time he blinks the burning liquid out of his eyes, she has faded into the night.

He slumps forward, face morosely cast to the ground, and doesn't see Finn and Wells looking at him from the shadows.

“You still think he lied?” Wells whispers, never taking his eyes away.

Finn only nods.

“So the plan...”

“Is the same. We go tomorrow.” They stare in silence as Bellamy picks up the empty tin mug and angrily flings it into the darkness after his sister.

“Just the two of us?”

Finn nods in the direction the girl disappeared. “I'll ask her. I think she has reason to come.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATIONS
> 
> sha: yes  
> niron: love/lover  
> hodnes: my love
> 
> PS: I wrote the lexa/anya scene like this on purpose...if you expect something steamier...there will be...but this was more about need than anything else. Still, I hope you will like it. (and the rest of the chapter obviously :p)


	5. Secrets In The Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn, Wells and Octavia venture into the woods to look for Clarke. Some hard truths await them.
> 
> Meanwhile in the Pack, Lexa is taken by hesitation, torn between the urge to make Clarke hers and Anya's mate and the hurt at the loss of Costia. As for the new wolf, she takes the first step towards acceptance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added one tag on the run, related to something happening in the chapter. I don't like to do that, but at times plotlines alter as I write them down.
> 
> As usual kudos and comments are welcome and so are suggestions - thank you for your continued support! It means an awful lot! Hope you will enjoy the chapter!
> 
> If you see any mistake sound off in the comments and I will fix them!

“ _My father said the weakest camel draws the wolves.” “_

_Mine told me to hide until the wolves go away,” Abban replied.”_

Peter V. Brett – _The Desert Spear_

 

Finn puts a careful ear to the closed up entrance of the tent he is sharing with Wells and holds his breath, counting up to ten. The trees’ branches above them creak and sigh in the soft breeze, and a few birds have started chirping, while the sepulchral calls of what he believes to be owls are gone, signaling the arrival of dawn. He turns to Wells, who is adjusting the straps of his backpack and nods, and the two of them slither outside quietly, hugging the half-finished palisade and keeping to the shadows as much as possible, until they get to a gap in the fence and slip outside the camp. They freeze, caught in a small dip of the land, like animals caught in glaring light, when above them, on one of the platforms overlooking the palisade, one of the boys on guard duty appears, bearing a torch.

Wells cusses softly as they both recognize Murphy, one of Bellamy’s henchmen. After the confrontation he and Wells had regarding the Ark bracelets, he will make trouble if he spots them. Thankfully the shadows still present under the trees protect them, and after a few moments he turns and walks in the opposite direction.

Finn touches Wells' arm and wordlessly they move, trekking for a few minutes until the silhouette of the drop-ship is completely obscured by the foliage. They stop next to a gnarled tree, neatly split in two by lightning almost to the base, but somehow still alive and then they wait, Finn crouched and collected, Wells more nervous, playing with a leaf he has picked up from the ground.

The minutes seem to drag by and finally he nudges his companion.

“She's not coming.” he starts to get up, eager to be on his way on Clarke's tracks. Finn grabs the cuff of his jacket firmly and pulls him back down.

“Give her a few more minutes. She sleeps further from the gap in the fence than us, and is well guarded.”

As if on cue, there is a crackling and sudden movement from the bushes to their right and Octavia emerges, looking around carefully, carrying a backpack fashioned from refurbished cloth, like Wells'.

“Told you,” Finn elbows him in the ribs, then motions for them to group close. The girl looks like she has not slept at all, her eyes sunken and red. She had been crying all night, probably.

 _Not surprising._ Finn feels bad for her, and his tone is gentle as he speaks.

“I can take you where we found Atom first,” Wells seems on the point of protest, but takes a look at Octavia's haunted eyes and thinks better of it, “it's the closest. Then we will trek up to the place where we lost Clarke.”

“You think you can find it? It was dark.” Wells' voice falters and he looks at his boots. The alternative flashes through all their minds, but nobody has the courage to voice it, as if doing so would make it inevitable.

“There is only one way to find out.”

Finn starts walking without looking back and hears the others follow. Gradually they pick up the pace, as first rays of sunlight finally bathe the forest in a warm pinkish light. Still, after the fog, everything feels different, more menacing, and the carefree way in which they explored their surroundings for the first few days is gone forever. He thinks that when they were put in the drop-ship they were like children. After hitting the ground they had to grow up very fast.

They walk in silence, as the woods wake around them, and Finn is the first to arrive to the small clearing where he and Wells last saw Atom. He stops dead for a moment, then abruptly puts his arms out, blocking the way.

“Hold her back, Wells, hold her back!” he hisses, but Octavia is quicker and shrugs off the boy's grasping hands, ducking under Finn's arm. She takes a few steps forwards then falters, her cheeks bleached of color, hand slapped to her mouth as her eyes dart around the glade, taking in the gruesome details.

The body, or what is left of it, has been torn to shreds and mauled. The bones bear the mark of teeth and the little scraps of meat remaining are scattered everywhere. Octavia drops to her knees not caring about the pools of congealing blood staining her pants. There is so much of it, the earth has not absorbed it fully yet, and Finn wonders how it is possible for a body to carry so much inside.

“You said he buried him,” she whispers hoarsely, shoulders rising and falling so rapidly, he thinks she is crying. He goes to her, aiming to comfort, but when he glances at her face, her eyes are dry and hard, although her features are contorted by pain.

“It's what he said,” he confirms. Wells steps into the clearing, eyes disbelieving, and winces when his foot accidentally crunches on some bones with a crack as loud as gunshot in the quiet. Rapidly, almost running, he disappears behind a pine and they hear him retch violently.

Finn offers Octavia his hand. There is nothing he can say to soothe her sorrow.

“It must have been an animal,” Wells offers awkwardly, as he comes back into view, wiping his mouth on a sleeve.

“He told me he had to kill him,” Octavia's voice is chocked with the unshed tears, “to end his suffering. If he lied about the burying...”

Finn pulls her to her feet. He doesn't want to think that Atom may have been alive when some wild beast happened upon him.

“I will come back to give him a proper burial,” he looks at her utterly serious and she nods gratefully.

“Together,” she says, her jaw clenched, “we will do it together.” As they resume the march, he finds himself thinking it's a pity the better of the Blake siblings isn't the one in charge.

It takes them almost until noon, but finally they come upon the spot where they lost sight of Clarke. He recalls the night descending around them, the mad rush to escape the toxic fog, then turning for a second, to find that she was gone.

“Hey, Finn!” he shakes himself out of the memory and sees that Wells is standing with Octavia, both looking downhill and waving him over. As he approaches, he notices the uprooted, flattened bushes and deep gouges in the dirt.

“She must have fallen down this ravine,” Wells points at the loose rocks and the rusty trail that looks suspiciously like blood. The sun has reached its zenith and they see something silver glint at the bottom of the slope.

“Let's go down take a look.” Without waiting, Wells half skids, half runs down, amid a shower of pebbles and they follow more cautiously, flailing their arms around wildly to keep their balance.

When they reach him, he is crouched low, and holds up what he has found so they can see it.

“Her bracelet.” The circle of metal is broken in several pieces. Finn feels his own stomach heave. She had fought so hard to keep it from Bellamy.

“So she fell down here,” the wind picks up and Octavia brushes away the hair whipping across her face, “then what?” She squints at the glare coming off the nearby water, then grabs Finn's arm and points ahead, “look! More blood!”

They crowd on the edge of a small brook and see the trail stop, and then restart towards the treeline. It's lucky it has not rained since she disappeared, or they would have never found any tracks.

They hurry along, hoping against hope to find her still alive. Hurt maybe, but alive.

Octavia, who has switched position with Wells and is bringing up the rear, stumbles and almost falls on an unseen object, putting her hand out, clawing at his jacket for support.

“What?” he whips around alarmed, then watches as she goes utterly still, eyes glued to the scuffled ground between them. She bends uncertainly, and pushes some ferns out of the way. Half hidden under the plants, they see a jacket, just like the ones they are wearing, shredded to ribbons and made rigid by the quantity of blood soaked into the fabric.

“No...” Wells takes the garment from her and runs his hands along the cuts, “no it can't be...she...”

Finn puts a hand on his shoulder, “Wells...” Wordlessly he tilts his head towards a nearby tree. Deep furrows mar the surface of the bark, which hangs peeled off in wet strips in several spots.

“A wolf?” Wells voice rises, incredulous,” a wolf did this?”

“It would have to be a big one,” Octavia puts her hand on the tree next to the markings and they all can see what she means, “a _fucking_ big one.”

“Remember the deer with two heads?” Finn asks weakly, “who knows what else radiation has spawned.”

Wells lets the jacket drop to the ground, and takes out his knife, turning it over with a disgusted grimace.

“We need more than this stuff if we encounter whatever... _monster_ did this! We need guns!”

At the mention of guns Finns inclines his head, studiously avoiding eye contact with them. Octavia is the first to notice. She puts herself squarely in front of him, thunderous glare plastered on her face.

“What is it Collins?”

“I...may know where to find some,” Octavia's hands get a hold of his collar, in much the same way Wells grabbed Bellamy just a day back. “Why didn't you tell us before?” Her flat tone is scarier than any furious argument.

Finn chews his lower lip, gaze glued to the deep claw marks gouged on the bark of the tree. When he lifts his face, to meet Octavia’s questioning, angry eyes, he finds he cannot mitigate the truth.

“Because I didn’t want your brother to have them,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Anya blinks awake, feeling Clarke's body strain against her own. The child lets out the tiniest whimper and without thought she pulls her closer into the warm cradle of her arms. Lexa's scent still wafts around the small space, but only the impression of her body remains on the bed. Anya feels her mate just outside, and another trace reeking of barely restrained violence and the hard edge of iron bound shields. Gustus.

Clarke murmurs softly in her sleep, and gazing at her face, she can tell from the hectic movement behind her eyelids that she is taken up in a vivid dream, or more likely a nightmare. Anya places a tender kiss on her forehead, humming softly. Gustus' voice, raised to a growling hiss, reaches her.

“What if she is _solotraka_ , a half-breed that cannot shift?” Lexa's answer is a throaty rumble of warning.

“I told you she is _not_ tainted.” Anya can almost picture the Alpha, stepping into Gustus' space crowding against his chest, chin arrogantly tilted until he gives in. Except, he has his teeth firmly locked around this particular bone.

“Then why,” he snarls, “have you not completed the bonding ritual? The whole Pack feels the need, _Heda!_ ”

A sigh and a rustling of cloth follow, then a mournful whisper. “Costia...”

The name cuts into Anya like a sharp blade, and again she is reminded of their loss. She loved Costia, but the girl had been in Lexa's heart well before they came into their wolves and found their place in the clan. For Anya moving forward is still painful, but easier.

She is so engrossed in the past that she does not notice Clarke stiffen slightly, then go utterly still. Moments pass and Lexa comes back to them, eyes shadowed by unspent grief. She looks at Clarke and the conflict is clear on her face. She wants the contact, yearns for the healing to begin, but on the other hand feels like she is betraying their dead lover's memory.

“There have been more sightings,” she chooses to say at last, knowing from Anya's expression that she has heard everything, but choosing not to address the sore point.

Clarke begins to stir, pulled to consciousness by their combined presence and Anya gently disentangles from the blonde, who overnight has shifted against her almost inch for inch. She knows that, while her instincts drive her, the part of Clarke that is still raw would be abashed if she woke to find herself so entwined with her.

The pup sits up slowly as Anya gets up and wordlessly starts to dress, and rubs the sleep from her darkened eyes with the heel of her hands. Her hair is a mess of knots, and as wrinkles crease her brow while she regains her bearings, the woman has to resist the temptation of gathering her to herself and put her hungry mouth to the girl's.

“Our patrols have reported more Twisted Ones moving across our lands,” she explains softly, as Clarke's eyes lock to the sword Lexa is clinching at her belt, “we will hunt.”

Clarke's pupils contract, and a circle of gold appears around them, merging with the blue and making it lighter. Her wolf intuitively knows the old enemy even though the girl has not yet heard it named. A low, menacing growl shakes her chest, and her hands close up in furious fists. Anya sees the white wolf looking at her and she is certain that if the girl had strength to shift at will already, nothing short of tying her down would keep her from running along with the clan.

Clarke has risen to her feet without realizing, her body taut with wrath and Anya steps up to her, enclosing her into a fierce embrace, as her hands run delicately up and down her naked back.

“When you are ready you will have blood for what has been done to you, little wolf,” she promises into her ear.

Clarke pulls back cautiously, fury dwindling, and silently keeps watching as they complete their preparations, then trails them to the entrance of the tent, biting her lip and Anya sees the hurt at being left behind, even if there is no choice. She hugs the girl once more, before stepping outside and stares as Lexa's jade gaze locks onto light blue, before the Alpha whirls away without a word and stalks up to her mate. Clarke briefly hunches over as if dealt a physical blow.

Just when it seems that Lexa will leave without so much as a backward glance, she retraces her steps and comes to a stop in front of Clarke. Tentatively she lifts her hand, and traces the curve of her cheek. Her green eyes are of a lighter tone, as if the color is watered down and only when she has moved away, her face a perfect warrior mask again, Anya realizes she let the Omega see her unshed tears.

 

* * *

 

There is nothing left to do for Clarke but watch them go, trying to hold herself together until they are out of sight. The shadow of Lexa's touch burns against her cheek, but she cannot decide if she is glad for it or not. After a while she turns, vision hazed by sorrow and heads back inside the tent.

She is surprised when Nyko's scent fills her nose. Quickly she dresses and her wolf helps Clarke follow the trail to a small canvas set up at the opposite edge of camp. She ducks inside, and watches him for a few moments, as he stands hunched over a table grinding herbs, back to the door.

“Hello, little wolf,” he says gruffly without turning. She stifles a flutter of surprise, if she can smell him almost across camp, then she should expect the same, especially since she is standing right behind him.

“You don't go hunting?” she inquires, stepping up to him and looking at his hands, expertly turning dry herbs into powders he then transfers to small wooden containers.

“I do not run with the wolf often.” He does not elaborate and she wants to ask why, but feels it is none of her business. He glances up at her, eyes startlingly kind in a such a ferocious face.

“You are troubled,” he pulls out a low stool from under the table, and invites her to sit with a gesture, “you come with questions.”

She sits with a grateful sigh as her shoulder gives a painful twang, then puts her elbow on the table, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. The maimed arm she keeps low, hand on her thigh, in a position that is becoming a natural state to her.

When she speaks, her words are slow, as she is unsure she can express all the thoughts that crowd her head.

“I remember more of what happened,” she begins finally, “I remember bruises, cuts, a concussion...” she stops as he looks at her blankly unfamiliar with the term, “a blow to the head.”

Nyko nods.

Her fingers go to her forehead, tracing the spot that was gashed open by sharp rocks. The skin is new and tender, a bit more sensitive than the areas around it, but healed quicker than normal. He says nothing watching her hand move.

“I recall Anya slashing her and Lexa's hands, and the taste of their blood,” that comes from the wolf not her, “yet I felt their touch afterwards, and the cuts are already closed.”

He has been standing so still, she jumps slightly when his hands go to the hem of the shirt, and he takes it off in one fluid motion.

“What are you doing?” her voice comes out strangled, and she looks away quickly, cheeks reddened by awkwardness. His fingers trap her chin and he lifts her head, not unkindly.

“I am showing you,” he replies softly.

She has no choice but to look. More tattoos adorn his broad chest, bluish-black like the ones on his face, and the designs are so intricate her gaze struggles to follow. They remind her of growing things, brimming with life and take her breath away, as the artist inside her stirs.

“Here,” he moves exposing his flank, so she can see the three long marks arching along his ribs, “a snow cat, up north near our borders. I got too close.” He turns completely and she see more scar tissue on his back, “ and here, the claws of _Azgeda_. A rival clan,” he adds when he sees her confusion.

“I don't understand,” she murmurs.

Nyko crouches down, so that their eyes are level.

“The wolf helps us heal, but we are still human. Ask any in the clan and they will show their scars proudly and tell you the stories behind them.”

Clarke slumps forward, crestfallen.

“I read stories on the Ark.... I thought....” she trails off, unsure how to continue.

He does not ask about the Ark, although she sees the glint of curiosity in his dark eyes. He places a hand on her arm soothingly.

“Tell me about these legends.”

Clarke thinks back at her father, and the stories he'd read to her every night before sleep. When she got old enough, they'd read together, taking turns. Her voice is tinted with sadness when she replies.

“My dad...he would read to me of werewolves. People that could turn into wolves and heal miraculously from the most severe injury.” She frowns, trying to bring more to her mind and another detail resurfaces, “except from silver. Silver was their bane.”

He scratches his chin. “We have legends too. It is said that in older times we were all just humans. Until...” he stops abruptly, guarded.

“Until?” Clarke prompts.

He shakes his head. “I am a healer. It is not my place to instruct the Omega, but the Alphas’.” Again, there is a shifting of the eyes, a tremor in him of utter fear, like when he told her Lexa would hurt him if she came to harm.

“What I can tell you is that legends always contain some truth,” he resumes.

Clarke's fingers rub the tabletop absentmindedly, following the fissures in the aged wood. She snatches her hand back and looks at it. She can feel every grain of the surface, every little imperfection. Every sense seems heightened, she feels more aware of her surroundings, more connected to this strange version of Earth none of the Arkers was expecting. Should she try to warn the other Delinquents? Would they believe her? Or even want her? Her wolf growls at her, as if intending that's not her place anymore.

She feels a deep loneliness, not of those people anymore, yet not believing herself part of these either, despite what she has been told. The wolf bites down on her soul and her stomach churns. Not of the sky, not of the earth, but caught in a tug-of-war match between the two.

She brushes her hand against her bandaged shoulder.

“So this will never truly heal,” she imagines a wolf, limping after the rest of the pack, and is reminded of the conversation she overheard at dawn. What if the man she heard is right and she is nothing but a burden?

Nyko places his own hand on her shoulder. She feels the strength of his fingers and knows he could crush the bone with little trouble, but the touch is tender, almost weightless. “If it wasn't for the wolf you wouldn’t be walking around child, you would be dead. There are other legends, about warriors surviving what you did, but nobody believed they held even a tiny speck of truth, until we saw them come true in _you_.”

“In nature,” he continues, his voice a murmur that makes her think of a brook snaking across the wilderness, “the wolf may hunt alone, but we are Pack as you are. We don't abandon our own” she opens her mouth to protest, the rejection she read in Lexa's farewell stinging cruelly, and he continues right over her attempt, “I heard the Alpha clearly tell you, yet you have doubts.” He brushes strands of golden hair out of her eyes.

“You do not have to be the strongest, or the fastest wolf Clarke. Take the fox for example, it's small yet cunning and pester it at your own peril. So ferocious for such a little animal.” He shrugs back into his shirt, “let your wolf guide you. Give yourself the time to trust her and she will show you what you can be.”

His scent changes slightly, becoming colder, almost metallic and she understand he will not say more on this for now. Still, she cannot bring herself to leave his company. Without hesitation, he lets her stay and look around while he continues his work. She itches to help, but knows nothing of the herbs he is using, and figures she would be more hindrance than anything else.

“I will teach you when you are well,” he rumbles, and again she is surprised at how he and the others of the clan can so easily tell what she is feeling. She can feel them too, if she concentrates, but mostly the emotions are intertwined and only by scent she manages to separate one individual from the other.

She walks over to a shadowed corner, as a flash of white grabs her attention. She reaches out when she realizes they are sheaf upon sheaf of paper, covered in drawings, but remembering her wolf's reaction when Nyko took Lexa's clothes, she halts, hand trembling with desire in mid-air.

“You can take a look if you would like.” A tension she didn't feel trapped in her stomach, gives way to excitement. She picks one up, feeling the full weight of the paper, and instantly she aches to draw something of her own. The tip of her finger traces the drawing, without truly touching it, and Nyko smiles a knowing grin.

“Here,” he says, pulling out more papers, ready to be used. He adds a few pieces of charcoal and hands her everything, “a welcome gift.”

She smiles, her wolf leaping with childlike joy and her worries are pushed back for a little while.

They talk for hours of inconsequential things, Nyko gently steering her towards levity whenever her mood strays to gloom. When the sun sets and he sees her eyes hold nothing but pain, he sends her off to rest. Clarke crosses camp quickly and unseen, most of the warriors gone with the Alphas. When she gets to their tent, she ducks inside, placing the sheaf of precious paper and the charcoals she had been hugging to her chest on the nearest table. Her fingers linger for a moment, but the wolf inside her snarls and paces back and forth and, as a result, she feels too restless to lose herself in drawing.

The strings of loneliness that have been tugging at her since they left, wrap more tightly around her heart and cannot be ignored any longer. On impulse, she goes back outside, and leaves the camp, plunging into the forest beyond.

 

* * *

 

As they run among the wolves, Gustus comes up to Lexa’s shoulder diffidently. They have cast the lots before the hunt and he and the Commander have picked the shorter straws, so they accompany the others in human form.

He meets her eyes for a quick glance, before sprinting to the left, gliding naturally around a small copse of birches, bark white as bleached bone. He closes distance again, this time his shoulder brushing briefly to hers. Anya, in wolf form on her other side, senses he wishes to talk and lopes away in a leap, almost lifting off the ground like morning fog to give them some privacy.

“I spoke out of turn,” a cautious rasp, grumbled deep inside his chest like earthquake.

“You did,” her voice is so coated with frost it almost cracks with the sound an avalanche makes when breaking off the mountainside.

“She is not rabid. I felt her wolf ache to come as we were leaving.”

“She isn’t. So you did.” They do not break stride as they talk, neither does their breath come faster or ragged. To their left, they hear the sudden snap of Anya’s jaws as she brings down a pheasant, hiding in the underbrush.

“ _Wigod ai op, Heda_ ,” he turns his head slightly, exposing the side of his neck in submission.

Lexa reaches up, knuckles brushing his skin, before her hand opens and she presses her palm to his throat for a moment. The ice thaws and her green eyes grow softer.

“It is not me you have to apologize to, _fos_ _gona._ ” She is about to add more, when a lonesome howl, tinged with the russet of pain and the deeper, almost black hues of sorrow, reaches them.

“ _Clarke._ ”

Without pause she veers off and the Pack follows east without a sound, the hunt forgotten.

 

* * *

 

Clarke does not know how far she walks, until she has to stop, short of breath, legs trembling with cramps that spread from her belly to the rest of her body. She feels feverish, her skin clammy with sweat, her eyes glazed by fever. Over and over again she had tried to rouse her wolf, first tentatively, then with more desperation. With each attempt the pain had grown, to the point she cannot even conjure the beast’s appearance in her mind without being sized by agony.

Her back leaning against an oak, she glances upwards, losing herself in the darkness above her head. For a moment, she is scared the shadow of pure malice haunting her dreams will turn burning orange eyes onto her, yet there is nothing but the night hanging over her.

She sees the moon, its radiance broken by the weaving of the branches overhead, and she feels a sickness of the soul she cannot explain. She reaches out to her wolf, like she has done before and attempts the shift. Again, torment wracks her limbs and unable to contain her emotions any longer, she throws her head back and howls desperately. Despite Nyko's reassurances, the morning fears come back to haunt her. To be _solotraka,_ condemned to a half-existence, never able to run with her brothers and sisters. The wolf riles against such thoughts, fangs bared at her throat. Clarke cannot fully accept the white beast lurking in her depths yet, but she remembers how it was when the Alphas held her and she _was_ the wolf. She felt complete.

 _Mates_. The thought is a bellow of possession. They are hers, as she is theirs, the wolf barks.

She wants them. To feel them close to her body, close to her heart all the time. When they leave her side, she aches cold and empty, like a house abandoned, where the hearth has been void of warmth and the merriment of fire for many long seasons.

She longs to touch them, to feel their bodies entwine with hers, to adore them with her mouth and her hands and let them worship her with every heated kiss. Clarke wants above all else to merge with their skin, and just be theirs. She falls to her knees, as the sharp edges of the cramps that torture her move from her belly to her sex.

A moan erupts from her lips, her wolf shuddering with desire, blue eye so darkened that their color transcends into obsidian. She recoils, uncertainty gnawing at her bones, the heat she feels for them impossibly strong. Or just plain impossible, that she should feel so much, so fast for people nearly strangers to her still. She knows nothing about them truly, and from what she has eavesdropped, Lexa at least is just as unsure about _her._

 _Then why haven’t you completed the bonding ritual?_ The man's words cut like a knife.

Yet her wolf seems to comprehend them instantly and see things that are still hidden from Clarke’s human eyes. The memory of the early morning fills her mind, the two Alphas standing at the edge of the woods, surrounded by Pack. There was something of the sacred in the way they held their hands, then raised them in unison, commanding the wolves, in the red sash draped around Lexa’s shoulder, and the black paint rimming Anya’s eyes almost ritually, before she shifted.

 _Let your wolf guide you, Clarke._ Nyko's words echo in her ears.

 _She is a cur. What if she cannot shift?_ Another growl, full of distaste and contempt.

She tries to reach out again, and the cramps intensify. All Clarke can see is her wolf almost solid in front of her, watching her, waiting to lead her from inside her heart. All she has to do is ask.

_Please._

The wolf turns and walks away, and she follows, dazed. She knows the beast isn't really there, but the white wolf walks just a pace ahead, fur almost glowing in the darkness, the step, assured if slightly favoring one leg, the powerful yet lean muscles pulling taut with each movement. The wolf turns occasionally to regard her, sapphire eyes grooved with intense gold, making sure she is coming.

The forest gives way to a meadow and Clarke can smell the last traces of the Alphas' release. She is drawn onward, until she comes upon the site of their lovemaking, then the wolf turns and leaps at her, and she collapses backwards on a bed of trampled grass.

 

* * *

 

When she is found, it is not Anya or Lexa that come to her first.

Gustus drops to his knees next to the girl, but she does not acknowledge him nor move. She is sprawled out, eyes staring upwards, unseeing. His fingers go to her throat, feeling for a pulse as he leans close to her, his cheek next to her mouth, waiting for a breath that does not come.

“Alpha!” he roars, not caring which will respond first, but understanding that the child has ventured so deep within her wolf, so deep into the untamed part of her spirit, that the human one is trickling away, like water out of a fissured jar. She could die, or worse if they don’t act with resolve. The gray wolf inside him trembles, hackles raised making him twice his side, rejecting the idea the Omega will be lost to them again with a raging _click_ of his maw.

She is icy cold and he gathers her against his chest, curling around her body protectively.

“I was wrong,” he murmurs against her brow, “I smell your scent and theirs and it's so mixed I cannot tell where theirs end and yours begin. Forgive me little wolf, for being afraid to see what was in front of my eyes all along.”

Anya bursts out of the high grass and in the next step is human again. Lexa is close behind her and they take the girl from him and cradle her between them. They call her name, then Lexa bends to cover Clarke's mouth with her own, as their wolves rise, calling her home.

Before her lips can brush against Clarke’s, the girl gasps like someone emerging from deep waters and breathes herself into her mouth. When her eyes snap open, the usual ocean blue has been completely devoured by gold.

 

* * *

 

_The med bay is quiet and shadowed, all the machinery dead, like Clarke has never seen it. She sits, naked and cross-legged on the floor, but there is no chill coming from the metal. She feels nothing, except she knows she is waiting for someone._

_From the darkest corner of the room the wolf comes to her, and sits, staring straight into her eyes. Clarke watches her carefully, taking in every single detail for the first time. Before she begged her guidance, the wolf had been flashes in her mind glimpsed at the corners of her eyes, slipping from her grasp like fine sand, before she could properly appraise her. She extends her hand, noting with surprise her body is not burdened by injury here. The wolf saunters closer and playfully nips her fingertips, before fitting her head under Clarke’s touch slowly, gaze locked onto the girl’s._

_Clarke pulls the animal close, burying her face in an ocean of fur. She feels weightless, and for the first time in many days there is no pain, or anguish. She could stay here._

_As that thought crosses her mind, the room grows dim, to the point she cannot see and she feels herself slip into the infinite blackness pressing down on her._

_An alien scent, that has no room in this place of peace finds her, striking true like a skillfully aimed arrow. She sees houses aflame, a sky blackened with bitter smoke and the scattered spoils of battle littering blood soaked earth. Then something touches her and the smoke changes to the sweet tang of a pipe being lit in front of a fire._

_Sudden light blinds her, and when she can see again two well-known wolves flank her own. All three look at her, questioning eyes searing her skin._

Come?

_Familiar longing fills her, eats her whole, and she can do nothing else but nod. Her wolf puts her paws on her and pushes her to the floor, laying on her and ever so slowly sinking into her to the bone. Clarke opens herself up, and a sliver of doubt is gnawed off her heart._

 

* * *

 

Lexa doesn’t really remember the journey back. All she can focus on is the girl she holds close to her chest, who clings to her desperately, moaning softly. Anya walks briskly beside her, reaching now and then to rub the back of her hand against Clarke’s cheek. They feel her wolf calling to them, full of need, and it is a struggle to not just lay her on the ground and claim what is theirs.

The girl is going through everything one of the clan experiences when they come into their wolf, but faster, and while _Trikru_ children are instructed from the early years on what to expect, she is completely ignorant. Lexa’s heart aches with empathy and shame, as she is conscious her reticence in the morning has only driven Clarke’s doubts deeper, like nails into her soul.

“She must have heard you and Gustus,” Anya speaks up suddenly, “If I had known she was awake... I am sorry _niron_.”

Lexa shakes her head, refusing the apology.

“I let fear get in between us. I only hope she can forgive me.”

When they get within the safety of the camp, Nyko is already waiting for them, alerted by a warrior that raced ahead. He takes one look at Clarke, writhing against Lexa, skin sheened with sweat and shakes his head.

“There is nothing here to heal, _Heda._ Her wolf felt your mating, and if you won’t complete the bond yet, you have to find another way to give her release,” As if hearing his words, Clarke arches violently and Lexa has to quickly step to the bed and lay her down, before the trashing makes the girl fall from her grasp.

Clarke’s eyes meet hers, pupils so contracted she looks blind and she grabs for her hand.

“It burns,” she pushes through gritted teeth, “ _please_ , help me.”

 

* * *

 

They have come for her.

When she feels their hands on her, lifting and cradling and keeping her safe, she wants to burst into tears of relief. Their scent is overpowering and both Clarke and her wolf succumb to it. The forest closes back around her, like tangible weight on her skin, a hundred different trails tickling her nose, yet none strong enough to eclipse the Alphas’ aura. She shakes uncontrollably in Lexa’s embrace and hears Anya’s quiet rumble, whenever her trashing becomes too violent.

Then she is let go, and her eyes open. She sees them both above, the hard planes of their faces gentled by the low light of a single candle. Their eyes are pure gold, like she knows hers to be, and fearing they will leave again she fumbles with her hand, finding Lexa’s and gripping it like a lifeline.

“It burns.” It does, from her sex upwards, a relentless wave of heat that scorches her skin, roasts her nerves, boils her marrow. Wetness drips between her legs, yet it too is hot, and fails to soothe her.

“ _Please_ ,” she begs, “help me.” Words die in her mouth as a series of spasms course through her, hips rocking into air.

Mirroring actions played out the day before, they undress her, touches tender, almost chaste, then lay with her in the middle, each holding one of her hands firmly in theirs.

“Tell us what the wolf wants, Clarke,” Lexa coaxes gently, and the sigh of her breath on her skin is enough to send new ripples down her body.

“You! She wants you! _I_ want…” her hips buckle again, muscles straining so hard her lower body is lifted off the bed.

“Hush,” Anya’s hand leaves hers and presses on her belly, holding her down firmly. Her lips kiss softly at the corner of Clarke’s mouth and when the girl turns her head and tries to bite her like she did Lexa, she moves back, just out of reach, not teasingly, but to preserve her from a decision that needs to be taken with unclouded judgment.

“We want you too Clarke,” Lexa’s is a murmur of confession, “but we know….” She swallows and trails off, and when Clarke’s frantically wide eyes meet hers for a second, she sees they have turned back to forest green and are filled with longing and affection. The words unsaid resound between the three as if shouted from a rooftop.

 _We know you aren’t ready._ Lexa bends forward and Clarke feels soft lips ghost over her own, and the wolf seems to settle momentarily for the closeness, even though the beat between her legs does not abate.

“The wolf still needs release,” Anya nuzzles into her neck, tracing her bite mark with the tip of her tongue. “Give it to her.”

Lexa’s hand, still holding hers, pushes her arm downwards, then lets go.

“Surrender, Clarke. We are with you.”

Clarke squeezes her eyes shut and she does, fingers quivering down the hardened muscles of her abdomen until she brushes her mound with a gasp. The wolf growls in her and she cups it roughly, pushed by urges she cannot comprehend but has to indulge, lest they drive her mad. Her wound throbs deliciously with each thrust of her hips.

Her fingers part her sex violently, and she presses down on her clit hard and fast as any room for teasing is long gone. She is soaked, and her hand moves of its own accord, two fingers seeking entrance into her depths, while her thumb keeps circling her center, tight with her want.

Her walls clench around her and she goes rigid, dimly aware of Lexa’s and Anya’s hands, soothing up and down her arms as they tether her to themselves, giving virginal affection, despite their own ardent yearning.

She crashes down with a roar, sides heaving and ever so slowly her body relaxes into the bed. Into them. The wolf is quiet and still inside her, and when her eyes refocus, she watches them meet above her in a long kiss, showing each other the love they cannot yet demand from her.

When they turn to her, their gazes are completely human again, and Lexa gently turns her on her side, so that her injury is not trapped under her, then sneaks an arm around her waist and spoons her with a sigh. Anya wraps her arm around them both, and Clarke rubs her cheek along her collarbone drowsily.

“Sleep, little wolf.”

Before she can think of something to say, the breeze picks up outside and a flurry of wind makes it into the tent, extinguishing the candle.

Clarke’s mind gutters out with the flame.

 

* * *

 

It raises its snout, gobbling a bite of meat, the innards of the deer spattered all over its face and shoulders, and sniffs the wind. It smells them, three young things trudging around in the forest and it slavers in anticipation of the feast.

Then it twitches, a sudden itching building at the nape of its neck. It knows what it means, but refuses to heed it, and starts to go after the new prey. The sensation grows to a buzz, then further, until its spine is quivering with it.

It screams then, frustrated and angry and turns tail, running in the opposite directions.

The little men call it, wanting to use its strength for their own petty ends, yet afraid of becoming what it is. They do not understand the joys of rent flesh, sweet blood and sucked marrow, as bones are crushed to powder beneath insatiable teeth. They are afraid to be like it is, savage and untamed and always, always _red_ , so they search desperately for a cure.

It would explain to them how wondrous it is, being a creature of such unbridled greed, reveling in the glory of spilled blood and guts, if it still had words. Yet, it cannot, but it is shackled by their binds and thus has to answer the call.

The _Wulfen_ canters off towards the Mountain, and in the distance it feels its other brothers do the same.

 

* * *

 

Lexa wakes with a start to find the space between her and Anya warm but empty. Her heart seizes with panic before her wolf wakes fully and takes in their surroundings, telling her Clarke is close.

She gets up carefully, as not to wake her mate and, wrapping a blanket around her bareness, softly pads through the tent.

Clarke is sitting on the floor, swathed in a blanket of her own, paper on her lap. She twirls a piece of charcoal lazily between her fingers and her eyes remain somewhere far away as Lexa moves closer. She has lit a candle and the soft glow haloes her in gold, making her tousled hair resemble a lion’s mane.

The Commander’s gaze drops to the drawings on the paper and a chill trickles down her spine, while her wolf snarls with fury. Every inch has been covered in the hideous depiction of a Twisted One. It must be the one that attacked Clarke, she figures, and the disjointed details she must have added as they spring to her troubled mind.

She sits wordlessly next to the girl, her _mate_ also, even if it’s still tender between all of them and incomplete and she still feels like if she holds on too hard, Clarke will shatter or disappear and she could not bear to lose another Omega.

Blue eyes, hazed with dark thoughts meet green ones brimming with uncertainty, then Clarke leans back against her, baring her neck. Lexa exhales in surprise, then ever so softly places a delicate kiss against her pulse.

They stay like that for a few moments, trust building slowly with actions, rather than words. Then Lexa pulls back and finds Clarke's hand with hers. The girl's fingers are smeared with charcoal and blacken hers, as she entwines them together.

“It haunts my dreams,” Clarke admits, eyes scouring the papers, Lexa squeezes her hand, understanding what her true fear is, “you are not like it, Clarke,” she places a finger under her chin and tilts her head up, brushing a kiss on her cheek, then adds, “that isn't the only thing on your mind though, is it?”

Clarke chews the inside of her cheek, then visibly steels herself.

“It isn't,” her eyes look on, unwavering, “tell me about Costia.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRANSLATIONS
> 
> solotraka: lone wolf /cur
> 
> wigod ai op, Heda: forgive me Heda
> 
> fos gona: first warrior
> 
> sigh..Nyko and Clarke brotp in full swing.


	6. Teach Me How To Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Costia is a shadow on Clarke's road to acceptance, or so she feels. Can she overcome her fears?
> 
> A drop-pod falls from the Ark, carrying a radio and a new arrival. Who will get there first? And what will they choose to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait. Life is being a bit rough- updates will come, just please be patient. My eyes aren't helping any either.
> 
> This is not long compared to the last entry, but I decided to go the introspective route for a bit, and leave all of the action for chapter 7. If there is a turning point, that will be it. Take that as you will.

_"What happens when people open their hearts?_

_They get better._ "

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

 

The sky is dark velvet when the drop pod falls. It is eerily silent, the only trace of its presence the telltale sign of the re-entry fires. When sounds catches up, it is the rending of fine paper at first, that folds upon itself then mounts, louder and louder, a boulder rolling downhill, then a waterfall, finally a hailstorm of biblical proportions. The impact is jarring, the gnashing of thousands of teeth rending earth, spraying grit, uprooting trees.

Nothing could survive such a fall.

Yet, defying all laws of physics something does. Something, someone breathes the deep slumber of lost consciousness inside the rapidly cooling metal.

The landing zone is far enough from life above the pure animal that nobody hears or sees it. Except one young man’s dark eyes, keeping watch for a gone sister.

Soon after Bellamy leaves his post, sneaking away like a thief without a word.

* * *

 

“Tell me about Costia,” the words cut deeper than Lexa expects, giving her pause. How to explain her love for the other Omega without making Clarke feel just like a replacement desired on the basis of instinct? The tenderness shared with the girl moments before seems to evaporate, the memory of her lips grazing soft skin dissolving like ice in the sun.

Her mind goes back to seasons long gone, a time before her wolf Ascension when the mantle of responsibility had still been on Anya’s and Gustus’ shoulders, before the clans united and the long war with the Northern clan caused so much spilling of blood.

_Costia’s head in a box, mouth stuffed with wolfsbane, dark grey eyes frozen open, glazed over by death, devoid of emotion for eternity._

Lexa shudders and closes her own eyes, overcome by the memory.

“She was everything,” the words leave her lips before she can rephrase, and Clarke recoils as if struck.

Clarke’s eyes are filled with hurt, and Lexa knows she is inevitably comparing, wondering about her motives and Anya’s, haunted by the ghost of a woman she never met. The Alpha cannot diminish what she felt for Costia, nor she wants to, but she reaches out, stopping just short of touching Clarke’s arm, trembling with tension. She needs to explain, to tear herself open so that the girl can know how precious she is to them. They all have been shadowed by guilt since they failed to protect their Omega, and this girl from the sky, that came to them so unexpectedly is their redemption.

She opens her mouth, readying herself under that hard cobalt stare, and her mind goes back to years long past.

“We grew together,” she starts, voice quivering slightly, “in the same village, we trained, learned to track, to hunt….everything together,” she closes her eyes, recalling Costia’s laugh mingling with hers as they played a prank on Anya, or were praised for something achieved. She talks at length, of the woman Costia turned out to be, of how she felt something stir inside her heart when she caught her bathing under a waterfall. They had been twelve when they first kissed, for play more than anything else, but they had long since been inseparable so it was just a matter of time. It felt, Lexa remembers, as if their wolves had already chosen each other before they awakened, and when that happened they had been drawn to each other irreversibly. She sees her honesty is cutting Clarke deeply, making her doubt stronger, but she has no other way of letting her know how important she is, she will be to them if she only lets them in.

“Then she was killed,” she has to drag the words out of a throat parched by so much talking, “we failed her,” her head hangs and she feels tears sting her eyes. She grits her teeth not to cry. When she manages to get herself under control, she raises her gaze to meet Clarke’s and she sees a deep sadness, mirroring her own.

“I need time,” the Omega says, standing abruptly and tearing her eyes away, “I need time to understand...to…” she takes a step back, then whirls around and dashes out of the tent, Lexa’s anguished call trailing her.

She makes it to her knees before strong hands pull her back, Anya’s body pressing into her from behind. They tumble backwards, Lexa twisting around and landing on top of her mate. She struggles to free herself, but Anya growls and holds on tight, shaking her head.

“Don’t,” she warns, “let the child be for a while.”

Lexa buries her face against Anya’s neck, crying softly, letting the grief for Costia, still fresh after so long, coat her cheeks. The older woman murmurs softly into her ear, calming words as her hands roam her back under the blanket that has fallen over both of them and soon enough they search each other to ease the hurt.  Anya flips them, straddles her, pinning her down firm but kind. When Lexa squirms, she bends down and captures her lips carefully slow, her tongue dancing along them before meeting the Commander’s.

“Allow me,” she breathes into her lungs, before trailing kisses along her jawline, to lick her earlobe and then trail down along her neck. Lexa lets herself relax under her mate’s ministrations, pushing away the urge to dominate and claim. Anya moves lower torturously slow, covering every inch of her with nips and ghosted kisses, deliberate swipes of her tongue, until finally she settles between Lexa’s legs, breathing her arousal in deeply.

When her mouth presses down, lapping at her sex, Lexa arches upward, whining with need, and her fingers tangle in Anya’s tresses urging her on. SHe feels her mate resist the animal hunger, sliding instead down a path of utter tenderness, every stroke of her tongue against her clit, every dart inside her tinged with the deepest love. Lexa almost sits upwards when release comes, throwing her head back and breaking out in a howl encased in lost affections and broken hearts. She screams her pain for Costia, her want for Clarke until she is empty and when her back gives way, Anya is there to cradle her and pull the blanket around them both. They wait like that, breaths slowing, hearts beating in unison, for their mate to come back, feeling the white wolf’s blue eyes regarding them the whole time.

* * *

 

She cannot find it in herself to fault Lexa for the pain she displayed, but _how_ exactly can she compete with the memory of a woman that meant so much to both her and Anya? She is so, so scared of being just a surrogate, something the wolves desire, but the women really wouldn’t if they had a say. SHe wants to believe she belongs to them, as she feels their essence mix behind her and instinctively knows what is about to happen.

Clarke darts through the camp upping her pace, unaware of the biting wind that plasters the blanket to her back, or the gravel that prick the sole of her feet. She is too upset to notice either that or where she is going, or the few startled looks she gathers from the sentinels as she blunders on, feeling the growing heat of Anya’s and Lexa’s union gnawing at her back, pushing her forward faster, drawing her in and repelling her at the same time.

She does not know where her feet are taking her, until she smashes into an unexpected obstacle of warm flesh and hard muscles. Nyko’s arms are around her suddenly, and she presses into his chest, the scent of medicine dulling her ache a little. He tugs her into his tent without speaking and sits down on his cot, pulling her with him, so that she is resting between his legs, her back to his front, his arms around her waist, warding off the pain. There is only a thin blanket separating her from him, he is fully clothed, and she has the fleeting impression she should be embarrassed, but all she feels is comfort. His warm breath ghosts over the back of her neck, then he rubs his cheek against hers, his beard prickly and hard.

“You are only a cripple if you allow yourself to be,” he murmurs gently. Her head whips around, gaze widening. She should be getting used to him guessing her thoughts, but whenever she thinks she has he takes the upper hand again. Her shoulder twinges as she shifts, and her vision is blurred by tears of anger and fear.

“How can they want me? Costia was…” his fingers clasp her chin tightly, almost roughly and his dark eyes dig into hers ruthlessly.

“You are not Costia,” he agrees, “but don’t you see that is exactly the point? Already the balance in the Pack is shifting, the tension that plagued us lessening. Even though you are not fully mated, you are helping to shape us back into what we used to be. You are our second chance Clarke.”

She is shaking her head, unable or unwilling to see past her injury. His hands grab her shoulders and she gasp, in  surprise not pain when he shakes her slightly.

“Why are you so hell-bent into considering yourself weak, or merely average?” he stands and takes her hand, and she has no choice but to follow, clutching the sliding blanket desperately about her shoulders. When she stands, her loins tighten achingly and in her mind’s eye the impression of the Alphas’ scents merging grows almost unbearable. Her thighs run with her own slick, but if Nyko smells her, he hides it well, his face a study of hard planes and determination. He wants to teach her something and he will not be deterred.

He almost drags her outside, and when she sees he is plunging them into the woods, she tries to resist, the anguish of her last foray into the wild starkly vivid behind her eyelids.

“I am with you,” he reassures, before he pulls again, and she stumbles into him, the trees closing around them. They walk until the scent of the camp is masked by that of grass and prey, wind and an impending rainfall. Her heart gallops in panic, a wild horse on a meadow hazed with dread and agony, mane flailing like a banner, as if trying to outrun her grief. She puts a hand to her chest, trying to take deeper breaths and calm herself.

Thankfully Nyko stops and chooses a mossy spot pulling them down to sit in the same way they were before. Clarke sways and closes her eyes tightly, as Lexa’s need threatens to send her mad with lust and longing and falls into Nyko’s embrace.

He cradles her close, a brother she has never had but always missed, his fingers tangling in her golden locks, tugging them softly before stroking her scalp. She leans back into him, hand reaching up to tug his beard in response and he laughs softly, his chest rumbling soothingly against her back.

“Close your eyes, Clarke,” she hesitates and he adds again, “I’m here.”

She obeys slowly and the sounds and smells of the forest become sharper as her eyes go dark. The whisper of the breeze brings a hint of smoke from a cookfire, she scents a rabbit’s nest nearby and her mouth waters as the wolf stirs with interest. The moss is moist with dew underneath them, her hands splay into the soft, green carpet as her head tilts back. She feels the openness of the lightening sky above her head, and the forest alive around her sinks into her bones, down to the marrow. It is ancient, yet alive with new things, sprawling, far, far beneath the yielding soil, the rotten, hidden creatures dead in it, fuelling its life. Her nerves seem to tingle with the cycle, and she feels the knowledge that comes with the wolf, of how the Earth is and always will be despite the blundering of her kin. Nyko does not speak, letting her take it in, not only her surroundings so much more vibrant than what they were before the bitter bite, but her change as well. Her senses keen as the sharpest blade, painfully so, even as she deliberately robs herself of one as her eyes stay tightly shut.

Anya and Lexa’s union back at camp turns to bothering to healing and she feels her wolf witness it with desire, but without the violent pushes she felt before. The wolf is waiting for her to catch up, she realizes, and her eyes pop open, bewilderment evident in her blue gaze. She feared being a creature of pure instinct, but discovers the wolf is more willing to be patient with her human side, more accepting that she herself is.

Her hands tighten onto something, and she notices for the first time, she has carried paper and charcoal with her when feeling Lexa’s pleading voice.

Her hands move of their own accord, pathing sensual lines upon the grainy paper. She draws bodies entwined, features now familiar yet only recently met. Her fingers smear the pigment, shading automatically. She loses herself in the act, the ache between her legs subsiding, the white wolf content to witness a tenderness she isn’t ready to surrender to. When the drawing is done, her limbs feel leaden and dimly she is aware of Nyko’s arms lifting her, carrying her back to a warm fire and the women waiting for her.

The skies open up and rain, like a silver curtain, washes down on them, thin like mist. Clarke raises her head and welcomes it, and allows its wet touch to wash away her unshed tears, clutching her sketch tightly to her chest, to keep the charcoal impression of the mates she is beginning to accept from being smudged.

 

* * *

 

The radio weighs heavy in his hand, colorful cabling trailing from the back of it, where he ripped it out of the pod’s housing. Bellamy’s hold on it tightens, as he looks from it to the unconscious girl, sprawled on the seat, still encased in the spacesuit. If the rest of the Ark comes down, he will die for shooting the Chancellor. He will not be able to protect Octavia. His jaw hardens, as he takes a few steps back from the wreckage and starts to scan the ground for a rock big enough to do the job. Why is he worrying so much for the same people that made his sister live under the floor for years? Fuck them, fuck their rules.

He squats down, free hand closing around what he needs and places the radio on the grass. The first blow cracks the casing, the second shatters it open, the radio’s components shining with copper wiring underneath. Bellamy works his arm up and down mechanically, like a hammer, until there is nothing left but bits of circuitry and plastic. He is panting by the end, tears of anger streaming down his face, every hit dealt to the radio like revenge taken for every humiliation up above.

He stands, kicking dirt over the mess then flings the rock away. He turns, eyes again trained on the newcomer and wonders if he should leave her, but then he remembers Atom and knows he cannot do such a thing again. Carefully he goes to her and frees her from the restraints, then disengages her helmet’s seal with a hiss of escaped air. He gathers her in his arms, as she begins to stir, and cradling her to his chest makes his way slowly back to camp. Hatred and compassion war inside his heart, and he tells himself he made the right choices. A few fragments of circuitry gleam mockingly in the sunlight behind him.

 


	7. Claw Marks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The seeds of treason blossom under the Mountain, while Finn, Wells and Octavia finally reach the bunker and a weapon stash that could make a difference between survival and certain death. 
> 
> The Pack sets out towards Polis, but the road home is full of hidden perils...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual thank you for being patient with my update times, they are coming slower but steady. I have left some pieces out of the puzzle on purpose with this chapter, but all will click into place with the next installment. 
> 
> As usual kudos and comments are much appreciated and so are theories and questions. Also, should you find any errors please do point them out and I will fix them!
> 
> Come snarl at the Twisted Ones with me on Tumblr @shadar17

_“I dream nights_

_and girls like tigers,_

_claws and teeth on both.”_

-Elisabeth Hewer - _Wishing For Birds_

 

“Doctor,” he grates, the fury that has taken up permanent residence inside his chest barely contained, “I hope you have some news for me this time. The Wulfen are almost here and I have no time to waste in idle speculation”

She barely glances up from the tissue samples she is deftly maneuvering under a microscope, but he catches a flashing smirk at his irritation, and a growl presses at the back of his throat.

He sees himself leap across the room and yank her back from the worktable, grabbing her by the hair to bare her throat and then sink his teeth into her pulse, ripping out meat and muscle and blood vessels. He watches himself drink deeply at the red fountain of her lifeblood, baptized in the warm fluid. He feels her face cave in under his punches and the sweetness of her brains is almost cloying on his tongue as he slurps them avidly from her skull turned chalice.

Despite the urge beating at his ribcage he does nothing of the sort, and stops half a room away from her, heavily leaning forward against her desk.

“They take longer and longer to answer the call,” she observes flatly, still not lifting her gaze.

His mouth curls into a sneer, but the familiar fear threatens to choke out his response. To devolve like them and become less than human, yet more than animal, a monstrosity suspended between two planes of existence.

“As you love to remind me, they are my _pets_. Measures are being taken.” He nods towards her equipment, “now tell me why I am here.”

She finally turns to face him, and his hands itch again to wipe that all-knowing smile off her lips.

“Do you remember what I told you about Thirteen?” she touches a control on her computer and the lights around the lab dim, while at the same time, magnified images of the tissues she was analyzing appear on a wall mounted screen behind her.

Even with the glare of the neon lights gone, he can pick out every detail, as if in broad daylight. He knows it for a side effect of the blood transfusions, as are the teeth, the shortness of temper. He also knows his eyes shine like glowing embers in the penumbra, how intimidating that makes him to his fellow citizens when they cross his path in the bunker’s corridors. Yet Tsing appears unfazed and while part of him loathes he seems to have no power over her, the other side of him, the one that retains sanity for now appreciates her nerves. They will need a lot of that in the times to come, he reckons. Her eyes never leave his as she awaits an answer and he thinks she can see how he is slowly going mad.

_Not yet though. Not now._

He closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. She smells laughably human and he knows it is because she never goes above the ground level floor, and so doesn’t need as much blood to stave the inevitable as he does. His inner scorn turns to envy and he scowls as he finally answers.

“He died by the sword,” he grates drily. _The damn wolves_.

“No, no. Not _that,_ ” she gestures at the pictures on screen and her gaze lits up with excitement, and a hunger not unlike his own. “You remember I mentioned it was feeding when he died?” She walks up to the monitor and taps a carefully manicured finger on it, “the readings were so off the charts I had to find out exactly _what_ Thirteen was feeding on.” She pauses and collects a series of printed data sheets, “or rather, who.”

“ _Who_? You mean...human?”

She nods. “Entirely.”

Tsing steps up to the desk and stops across from him, throwing the papers down so he can look at them. Among the endless strings of numbers are photos of the newcomers.

“It was eating one of them,” she points at the picture, “and their resistance to radiation is something….” she licks her lips, “astounding.”

The pieces fall into place into his mind and he knows these kids may be the key to everything. They possess something the mountain people do not and that combined with the wolves’ blood could bring them to the Outside again, the place rightfully theirs. As men and women, not monsters. Yet his father has forbidden...

She must be seeing all these thoughts drawing expressions on his face and she reaches out, placing two fingers against the back of his hand, like someone would do with a dog not completely housebroken. Her skin is cold, dry as a snake’s and the red beast stirs inside him.

“I am sure you can find a way to convince daddy,” she almost sings in mocking. Cage growls snatching his hand back, but a speech already forms into his mind, designed to turn Dante Wallace to their cause.

“Leave him to me,” he growls, and stalks to the door, a hand ready to push it before he whips his head around and bares his teeth into a snarl, so that she can see his canines are slowly turning into wicked fangs, “and Doctor, don’t touch me again.”

He leaves before she can reply, the monster inside him rearing up violently until all he can see are orange-red eyes glaring at him from the deepest pit of his soul.

He will turn his father around he is sure of it, but if all else fails.... Dante is getting old and feeble, his vision fossilized to a time that perhaps will never come back, a former glory he aspires to, yet they cannot achieve, for the world has changed well beyond what any of their forefathers had envisioned when they took refuge under the mountain.

His steps quicken purposefully. Perhaps it’s time for a change in leadership after all.

* * *

 

“Are you sure it’s here?”

Wells wipes stinging sweat from his brow, the heavy jacket plastered to his back. He resists the urge to take it off, the air still cold after the sudden downpour that had woken him right before Finn’s hand on his shoulder, and sent the three of them racing towards shelter. Spending a night out in the rough had not rattled him as much as he would have thought after their macabre discoveries, but his sleep had been fitful and light, coming in small spurts, then leaving when some animal noise resounded too close to the small copse of trees they had elected as home and the dim light of their small fire.

He thinks the most terrifying part was the time he had to keep watch. Back to the fire, sitting on a lonely rock, tightly gripping a makeshift spear, point hardened in the flames, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of anything that may do to them what it had done to Clarke.

Before thoughts of the blonde girl can cloud his mind with gloom and sorrow, Octavia’s fingers brushing his forearm bring him back to the present, and woods bathed in growing sunlight, glistening with the recent rain.

“There,” she points and they watch as Finn squats down, brushing dead leaves and rotting branches out of the way. The dark-haired boy looks up to them, shoving a particularly big piece of wood away with a grunt.

“I concealed the entrance after the first time I was here,” he explains as a rusted metal hatch is revealed under the debris, “figured we would not want someone like Murphy to get a gun.”

Octavia exchanges a grimace with Wells as they step close to the bunker’s entrance, and the two boys hook their hands around a handle and lift together, arms bulging with the weight. The hatch opens slowly with a loud squeal that breaks the natural noises of the forest and they cast nervous glances around, fearing that the invisible menace that has plagued their travels will appear, attracted by the commotion.

Finn quickly lowers himself into the hole, placing his weight slowly on a ladder that disappears into the darkness.

“I will make some light,” he calls up to them once he reaches the bottom, and soon enough the soft glow of a lone flame appears.

Wells motions for Octavia to go next before giving one last look around the small clearing and following his friends below ground. He places a hand on the hatch’s inside handle, ready to pull it shut after them, but Finn’s call stops him in his tracks.

“Leave it,” the voice drifts up the steel walls, echoing with a metallic undertone, “the hinges are so rusted we would have trouble lifting it open.”

Wells nods and descends, the ladder shaking and creaking under his weight, specks of rust getting into his nose and making him sneeze.

He blinks his eyes as his booted feet touch the ground and he pauses, before crowding around the light Finn is holding aloft. The dark haired boy hands him a spare candle, and another to Octavia, and as the brightness increases, their eyes take in details of a life long forgotten.

The bunker is a vast, man-made cavern and the scant, dancing light of the candles is barely enough for them to move about. It fails to completely pierce the murk, so much so that they cannot truly see how big the space is. Wells inhales deeply, surprised to find that, despite the coolness of the underground, the air is surprisingly dry. He expected staleness and rot and things falling apart with decay, but the metal floors’ surface is unblemished, if dusty. The candles’ light reflects dully on its surface, its radiance increasing slightly, yet he is completely unprepared when a massive shape looms suddenly in front of him and almost drops the candle, stinging wax burning his fingertips.

“A _tank?_ ” his voice is a strangled whisper, and he feels an irrational fear the machinery will come to life, the cruel, gaping maws of its guns targeting them.

“How did they bring it down here?!” Octavia echoes, running her hand along the tank’s camouflaged flank.

Finn shrugs, the gesture making his candle’s flame flicker wildly, their shadows swelling and diminishing with it.

“This must have been an army depot,” he moves forward to a metal shelf and picks a bundle up, unfolding it for them to see. It’s a uniform, Wells notices, with the same camo pattern as the vehicle and a patch on its breast draws his attention: U.S Army, it reads.

“There must be a vehicle entrance somewhere,” Finn resumes, “but this place is huge and I did not go very far.” He doesn’t add more, but Wells thinks he understands why. It feels like violating a tomb, with them as scavengers.

“The guns?” Octavia urges, focused on their goal,”we need to get back and warn the others.”

Finn nods, “this way.”

They follow behind him and Wells wonders how many more things there are down here that they could use. Tents perhaps, glow-sticks, maybe even dry rations…

He brings his wishful thinking under control with some effort, just as Finn is pulling a rifle and a box of cartridges from a shelf similar to the one where the uniforms were stacked. When they will be armed, perhaps they will come back with a bigger party and search the whole place. He thinks back at Clarke’s rent, blood-soaked jacket and shivers. _If_ they will survive to come back for a second look.

“Now we just need to learn how to shoot these things,” Octavia comments drily, hefting another rifle.

Wells shakes himself out of the gloom hounding him and gently takes the weapon from her.

“Here,” Finn hands him a magazine and he slams it in place with practiced motions, thumbing the safety off then on for demonstration. He meets his companions’ startled gazes and grins, “some guys in the Guard taught me. Father was not happy when he found out.”

“Didn’t want his son getting his hands dirty uh?” Octavia’s words bite coldly and he flinches, but when he looks back at her, he sees remorse flash on her face.

“I…” He stops her with a raised hand. He doesn’t need an apology, understanding the animosity and distrust the others feel towards him, for decisions he did not make and laws he did not uphold. The Ark is far above them all now, and he hopes that through his actions he can demonstrate his worth and get out of his father’s shadow.

“Let me load another two,” he swaps guns with Finn, “let’s find some way to carry a few more back with us along with amno,” he looks around, “we will need…” A loud _bang_ shatters the quiet making them jump, and he whirls around, bringing the freshly loaded firearm up to his shoulder with one fluid motion. He braces himself, ready to shoot, gritting his teeth against the pain of the recoil that will slam the weapon’s butt against his bones.

He squints through the scope at the darkness, struggling to keep his breathing even, palms sweaty and arms slightly quivering with the unfamiliar weight. His eyes find only darkness.

_Darkness…_

His heart jolts in sudden fright, the thin stream of sunlight that tumbled through the open hatch gone, their flickering flames guttering out quickly. Before he can put the terrible realization into words, Octavia precedes him.

“We’re trapped,” she says hoarsely and her words propel him forwards, mind too blinded by surging claustrophobia to care that whatever shut their way out, could be down in the dark with them, biding its time.

By the time he gets to the ladder he is running full speed, boots clanging and sliding along the steel floor, his hurried steps multiplied tenfold in the echoing chamber to the point it feels like a hundred other Wells are running alongside him. He slings the rifle across his back and leaps up the ladder, climbing up to the closed hatch in a flurry of limbs and throwing his shoulder into the metal slab. He puts all of his weight behind his frantic efforts, but the hatch is sealed shut, trapping them inside the bunker. He looks down at the others and mutely shakes his head, the darkness pressing down on him like a rapidly closing coffin. He drops down to the others and picks up the stub of candle he dropped at the foot of the ladder in his haste, using Finn’s proffered one to light it anew.

“That other entrance that must be around here? We better find it, and fast.” They hurry back among the stacks of supplies, none of them daring to think about the alternative.

* * *

 

“You can put me down, Nyko,” Clarke murmurs against the man’s chest and lifts her gaze to regard him solemnly. Rain has slicked their skin alike, plastering the blanket to her, and his shirt to his broad shoulders. Droplets are trapped in the tangle of his beard and shine like rough cut diamonds in the growing light. The downpour is slowly tapering off, a howling wind pushing black, rolling clouds into a line that darkens the horizon like splashed ink, and the sky beneath is transitioning from the pearly pink of early morning to a solid blue. She shivers against him, and his arms tighten briefly, concern evident in his eyes.

“As you wish, little wolf,” she sees him struggle with the will to protect her and is grateful when he sets her down. She doesn’t think she could deal with being treated like an invalid, especially not by one who has been encouraging her to accept both the wolf and her newfound limitations.

His hands linger on her shoulders and she feels a knot of tears rush up her chest, constricting her throat. She fights them down and the words of thanks she wishes to give seem stuck between her teeth, binding her jaws together.

She reaches up again instead, and tugs his beard softly, in a gesture that is becoming a habit between them. His smile is an amused flash of fangs and he cups her chin briefly.

“Anytime and always, _Klark_ ,” he says in reply to the unspoken words, his voice is rough as sand under bare feet, but warm like sunlight, “now go. You are drenched and if you get sick, _I_ will be the one in trouble.”

He pushes her gently, prompting her to turn and walk towards the tent’s entrance. Her feet drag slightly, but the combined scent of her Alpha’s propels her forward, tugs at her like a leash she doesn’t wish to oppose.

She ducks inside and her pupils expand rapidly, reacting to the light’s change, details jumping at her much faster than they ever have. There is a momentary sense of displacement, a dizziness like that brought on by sudden height and she sways on the threshold.

“ _Niron,_ ” Anya’s voice anchors her back to herself and the maelstrom of her senses quietens. She takes a deep breath and steps closer to her mates, hazel and green eyes trained on her. She looks down at herself, the heat of a blush coloring her cheeks at her condition. Her hair, soaked and heavy, hangs in darkened ropes around the pallid oval of her face and the blanket is a cold shroud around her frame.

She shivers again, harder this time, the drawing she is still clutching creaking softly as her fingers spasm and tighten.

Anya is out of her own blanket and Lexa’s arms in a flash, unconcerned about her nudity, still glistening with lingering arousal and the sweaty sheen of aftersex.

One step and the distance between them closes, as the older woman’s hands peel the icy cold cloth off her, dropping it to the ground, before wrapping strong arms around her. Even the bandages that cover her healing shoulder are wet and Anya sighs, shaking her head slightly, before pulling Clarke towards warm furs.

Clarke feels Lexa’s fingers find her free hand, tugging her down gently, and she allows herself to be guided to the ground between them, the Commander’s arms encircling her waist and pulling her to sit between her legs. Lexa trembles for a moment against her back, and, after Nyko’s words, the Omega knows the Commander’s pain is as raw as her own. The anger she felt when she fled the tent, the jealously towards a dead girl that can bring her no harm dissipate like water brought to boiling point, and she leans back into the embrace. Lexa means well, they all do, yet they all need time to adjust. She glances at Anya watching them both carefully and her steadiness reminds her of a rock jutting out of a riverbed, the water flowing around it for years, rendering it smooth but never uprooting it to tumble downstream. A look of silent understanding travels between them, and Clarke leans forward, handing her the drawing she is still carrying.

“For you,” she ducks her head shily, another blush chasing the shivers away, her wolf waggling her tail expectantly, curious yet fearful of her mates reaction, “both of you.” The sentence ends into a mumble and she slinks back into Lexa, eyes downcast, and bites her lower lip.

There is silence, and the rustling of paper as Anya regards her gift, and as the moment stretches Clarke perceives her wolf worm down on her belly abashed. Her eyes shut and she sees the white beast shaking, afraid of rejection, then a darker shadow enters her mind, another wolf that nips gently at the white’s neck, just as Lexa rubs her cheek gently against Clarke’s.

She gasps and blue eyes pop open, lifting onto forest green. Lexa nuzzles her neck carefully slow and they turn towards Anya, who seems to have forgotten them both, lips slightly parted, eyes glued to the parchment.

“What is it _hodnes_?”

Anya jerks her eyes away with effort, and proffers the paper.

“Us,” her words are deliberate, quite non-believing what she is seeing,”it’s us…” she gestures at the floor and the furs, “before.”

Clarke follows Lexa’s fingers as they brush the other Alpha’s while taking the drawing and then sneaks furtive glances at the Commander’s expression. Lexa’s eyes widen, the green alight with incredulity and her mouth quivers into a small O of bewilderment.

The blonde is swept up by a sudden wave of doubt, her insides sloshing around in panic at having intruded in a private moment she was perhaps not supposed to witness.

“I felt…” she stammers, voice breaking like frothing chaff upon jagged shores, “I couldn’t help…”

Lexa’s lips on hers stem the flow of excuses threatening to flood the air between them, and Clarke’s eyes flutter close of their own accord, the softness of the Alpha’s mouth on her own the focus of all her senses. She is aware of Anya crowding close, pressing a kiss to the fading mark on her neck and she feels the reassurance of the Pack around her.

“Thank you, _Kalrk_ ,” Lexa murmurs unsteadily against her mouth, pulling back slowly to regard the Omega. A cold thread that permeated her scent seems to disappear, a wariness lifted off her shoulders, and Clarke realizes her own wolf guided her hands into crafting something that has built the beginning of a bridge between them.

Before any of them can add more, a rustling at the tent’s entrance draws their attention.

“ _Heda_ ,” Gustus ducks inside and bows respectfully, his smoky scent tickling Clarke’s nose, warming with a tinge of rosewood at her sight.

“We are ready to break camp at your order,” he growls the words, but she understands it must be his normal way of saying things.

Lexa nods, reluctantly relinquishing her hold on the Omega. “Begin. We have a few villages to visit before returning to Polis.”

He nods again, including all three in his departing gesture and he is gone, voice raised to a belligerent bellow as he issues orders to the warriors awaiting the Commander’s pleasure.

“Polis?” Clarke asks rolling the unfamiliar name on the tip of her tongue, as Lexa stands, letting the blankets fall. It reminds her of a star’s name her father taught her what feels like centuries ago.

“Yes,” green eyes soften and the Commander’s lips quirk in a small smile, “we are taking you home.”

* * *

 

 

The forest flashes by, as it moves like liquid mercury, sliding over roots that would make a normal man stumble, parting underbrush with the swift push of a bare shoulder, snout to the ground. Its brothers and sisters are spread out around it in a fan-like formation, and it catches glimpses of them occasionally, snarling shadows darting about.

The metal collar around its neck bites into its flesh like molten fire, but it quickly has learned that tampering with it only brings more pain. It snaps its jaws with a loud, hateful _clack_. Another new way for the little people to bend its strength to their will, when they could just join it in the hunt and be free of fear and swallow the world whole. It had tried to disobey the orders branded into its brain as the collar snapped shut, and the agony had left it to writhe on the ground, howling endlessly as its limbs jerked and spasmed at the little man’s feet, the one that always called them back to the Mountain yet feared the Wulfen most.

It sneers, tongue lolling wetly as it runs low on all fours, strands of thick, glistening saliva dangling from its chin. The beasts of the forest fall utterly silent at their passage, and it can feel their primal fear and it is pleasing like a balm on its wounded pride, scalding like freshly spilled blood against the roof of its mouth.

A wilder, muskier smell drifts over the rest, of something as animal as the Wulfen is, but focused and ordered. Its chest expands with unbridled hatred as the scent of its cousins, those it has been sent to hunt, makes its nostrils flare.

Envy is what keeps it going with purpose and warm at night, jealousy at their perfection. The marvel of fur, the purity of that kind of hunt forever elusive, denied. It craves to be part of nature like them, yet it knows that for a cruel twist of fate it never will and so it hates until it is so red it turns as incandescent as a falling comet.

Two traces above them all sting its brain, their Pack leaders and then a third it has never sensed before, but just as powerful. It cracks its jaws as wide as they will go, rows of needle-like teeth exposed to the air and screams its challenge, echoed to the left and right by those like it.

It will kill the wolves and skin their Alphas and drape the grisly trophy about its shoulders.

Maybe then the pain of not belonging will stop for a while.

 

* * *

 

The jingle of harness and the wickering of horses surround Clarke as she trails Anya and they make their way to the head of the column. She gives a doubtful glance to Anya’s mount and the woman gently draws her close, guiding her hand palm open to the animal’s flank. Clarke feels the powerful muscles flexing underneath and the horse turns its proud head and sniffs at her, before snorting softly.

“I never thought…” She trails off, the memory of the clinical coolness of the Ark filling her wolf with dread and stark refusal. Anya’s hand tightens around her, and her steadiness chases Kane’s voice, condemning her to endless days of lock-up, out of her mind.

Clarke swallows, suppressing the memory and begins again, “I have read of horses, drawn them, but...I...none of us ever thought we would actually come to Earth.”

She feels a pang of guilt as her thoughts move to the other Delinquents, and fear surges inside her at the thought the same things that attacked her could be preying on them. She owes them a warning at least, yet why would they even believe her, let alone listen to her when she herself is so conflicted about what she has become?

Anya pulls her back into the circle of her arms, pressing a gentle kiss to her hair.

“I am glad you came to us,” she glances up at the sky and laughs softly, “perhaps one of these nights you will describe how the stars look from the other side.”

Her hands go around Clarke’s waist, cutting their idle talk short, and she is lifted on the horse’s back before the warrior vaults on the saddle behind her.

The other pack mates form into a column, well trained horses falling easily into step, as a few fan out on either side, galloping deeper into the woods to cover the group’s flanks. Clarke’s eyes are drawn to Lexa, the Commander riding a few positions ahead, straight-backed and severe, Gustus a dark, hulking wall by her side. She wishes things between them could be easier, but she feels that interacting with Lexa is like walking on thin ice, every step a risk that could land her in freezing water. Again she compares those feelings to the stability that emanates from Anya, a welcome harbor, solid jetty in bad weather. The woman’s arms tighten around her, her wolf feeling the white’s uneasiness and Anya’s scent mixes with hers comfortingly, soothing her troubled mind.

“All will be well, Clarke,” the words are so soft the girl isn’t sure they are actually spoken, and she half turns to meet the warrior’s all-seeing eyes.

There is a sudden crash of broken branches, like crackling fireworks to their right, and one of the outriders gallops in, blood streaming in a red curtain down his face, horse frothing at the mouth, all terrified whinnies and madly rolling eyes.

“Ambush!” he screams, and a shape dark as smoke bursts from between the trees behind him, tearing him and the horse down in a whirlwind of claws and ripped flesh. Anya’s mount rears back, hooves kicking the air wildly as another silhouette fills the space in front of them, claws reaching for the saddle, cutting through belts and buckles and the animal’s flank.

The women are thrown backwards, and Clarke feels Anya’s hold disappear before she hits the ground so hard her lungs empty of air in one harsh breath, pebbles and gravel digging into her back. Her head slams to the ground, rebounds and her teeth cut the inside of her lip. She lays splayed on the ground disoriented, vision blurred and tilting and the same figure that attacked their horse blots out daylight above her. Cobalt eyes meet orange ones and she knows the creature that wounded her is back to finish the job. It’s back for her and this time she will die.

Her belly twitches violently, the wolf rebelling to her impending demise, ascending so rapidly she feels as if her bones are splitting into a million shards. Without thought she claws at the snout hanging above, jaws open, descending to her throat, and rises to meet it with a snarl of her own, irises aflame with golden fire. Her mouth floods with blood and reason flees, leaving only the white wolf and a world burning with anger.  


	8. Rubicon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Twisted Ones spring their ambush, Clarke is forced to face her nightmares with dire results. 
> 
> Trapped inside the underground bunker Octavia, Wells and Finn manage to find a way out, yet something has been waiting for them all along. 
> 
> Far in the cold North an old foe sets another scheme in motion, as rumors of the Omega that fell from the stars reach their ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I truly, humbly apologize for the long wait- the chapter is longer (and chapters will keep growing) so I do hope that makes it up to you at least a bit. 
> 
> Thank you for being patient. For those of you reading my other works, nothing has been abandoned, it just takes me more time than I would like and my eyesight doesn't allow me to spend as many hours as I would want to with my fics.
> 
> You are all so awesome and I treasure the comments and kudos you leave dearly. Keep sending in feedback! It truly means more than I can say.
> 
> There are many, many details now so if you see any mistakes do not hesitate to point them out! Thank you all for reading.
> 
> This chapter is for Jude81 whom I am more than honored to call friend- thank you for the vomit dear.
> 
> EDIT: I know some parts of this chapter are visceral and rough, but I do hope that if you have objections you will tell me. I am always open to criticism and rest assured this is not angst for the sake of it. Seriously, if you think I screwed something up sound off! (I was really nervous posting this chapter, can you tell?)
> 
> As usual come find me on tumblr @kendrene

_“Whoever fights monsters should see to it_

_that in the process he does not become a monster.”_

\- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

It uses a tree trunk as springboard, talons scoring the bark with deep grooves, and its body coils tightly for an instant, suspended above ground before it lunges at the man on horseback with a roar of fury. The horse rears up, the man using his knees to turn the animal expertly and its claws miss by inches. It strikes the ground hard and twists, muscles flexing, ready to launch a second attack, but the rider has turned tail and is already galloping away, towards the rest of the wolves.

It can do nothing but pursue, yet does it gladly, braying madly as it goes, a litany of bloodlust spilling from broken, bent lips.

The main column comes into view and the scout’s warning shout is cut off mid-air, the yell dying into a gurgle and a spray of red that wets the leaves around, as it catches up and tears into the man’s back as it leaps atop the horse’s hindquarters, then with a back-swipe of its arm separates head from shoulders. It opens its maw wide, letting the hot jet of blood fill the ravenous hole. It gulps and sucks the liquid out of the air, then rips the horse apart with equal ease, scattering parts about, viscera draped across its shoulders as it descends among the warriors dispersing into chaos.

A particular prey draws its attention, a mount white as fresh snow and atop it two women, their scent made pungent by the ancient power it craves and hates so consumingly. It almost lifts off the ground, its shadow seemingly having to keep up, as it races towards them to cover distance and sink its teeth in them first. Another brother has spotted them and it swipes at the rival as it rushes past, too frenzied to care it has wounded one of their number.

As it looms in front of the horse, the beast shrieks, prancing back and lifting its front legs to kick out wildly, iron-shod hooves dangerously close.

The women are thrown to the ground, one rolling away expertly, the second hitting the dirt badly, shoulder first, before tumbling head over heels and finally onto her back. She has no time to regain her bearings as it sprints forwards, dying horse forgotten, and places a clawed hand on her chest, throwing her back down roughly. It leans down and snarls into her face, a trembling that starts deep inside its chest then suffuses its body. Her scent up close brings back the recollection of another, the sweet taste of her flesh, fangs sinking deep, pulling muscle from bone and then the agony of a spear, the bite of sharp metal severing a windpipe and cutting off air.  

It shares the memory of a corpse and its maws crack impossibly wide, a tendon snapping with a wet pop as it readies itself to tear the girl’s face off with one huge bite.

She surges forward unexpectedly, brute force shattering its hold and bares her teeth, canines elongated, blue irises devoured by wolfish yellow. There is a snapping of jaws and fingers dig into its eye sockets, scratching its vision away. Blood fills its throat and when muscles reflexively swallow, it knows it for its own.

 

* * *

 

Emerson crouches behind a tree, eyes trained on the humans, barely more than kids, noisily trudging through the bushes. He raises a gloved hand and adjusts the gas-mask, tightening the strap under his chin. His breath reverberates loudly in the close confines of his protection, the recycled air stale against his teeth and for the hundredth time he curses the bloody thing. The filters give a hollow click, signalling another half hour of air gone and he shifts irritably, willing his targets to move faster.

As much as he enjoys being on the surface, he itches to rid himself of the environmental suit, which has become like a furnace under the glare of the sun, sloshing with the sweat drenching is fatigues, moisture running in rivulets along his jaw. As he watches the kids slouch tiredly in a circle for a moment of rest, he thinks back at the moment the President’s son took him aside, revealing his plan. Emerson favors young Cage, believing he has the ruthlessness required of a successful leader, a quality his father seems to have lost with age, surrendering himself and the rest of his people to a life in the dark.

The soldier can only see extinction down their current path, population dwindling due to natural causes and the transfusions’ side effects. No matter how many children they sire thanks to  the fertility enhancers  developed by Dr. Tsing for the women, their numbers are slowly falling, one generation to the next. He has seen the graphs, read the statistical data and he knows the Mountain will become a tomb if they do nothing.

Cage has finally stepped out of his father’s shadow and Emerson wonders briefly what changed in the man. He had wanted to ask during their meeting, but restrained himself with effort, remembering the rumors that were passed around the barracks. Dark stories, depicting the Wallace heir as a lunatic prone to anger and sudden violence, whispers of blood abused beyond necessity, He had caught some of his men muttering of addiction and speculating in shadowy corners, punished the most vocal himself, assigning them to solitary duties in the most remote parts of the bunkers, yet he could not squeeze out the diffidence that had wormed into his chest.

Fallen branches creak and snap, signalling the Sky people are on the move again, and he pushes the consequences of such rumors out of his mind. The unpredictable spikes in aggression transfusions can cause, are the reason he refused the one offered before his mission. His task requires stealth, and he needs his wits about him. The solution to all their problems is close, freedom in sight at long last and he will be damned before he allows a clouding of judgement to disrupt carefully drawn plans.

He rises from his position, muscles protesting the long wait, as the kids disappear from view, easily following the trail of snapped branches and broken foliage they leave in their wake. The one that leads them, a youth with long hair and a shadow of stubble on his cheeks is the most dangerous he decides. He moves with assurance, taking the time to actually bend branches out of his way gently, his steps soft where the other two move like lumbering oafs.

The sun is peaking by the time they stop again, their guide lowering himself on hands and knees to uncover a metal hatch.

Emerson knows of this place, his people having mapped out these remnants of a world long gone way before the children fell to the ground. They have never bothered to gather up the armaments, knowing the wolves invest such places with superstition, and trusting  the Veil to dispose of stragglers. He knows the boy dropping first into the earth’s bowels has been here before, but kept the resources beneath a secret close to his chest. Losses and need have driven him here with others and delivered the three trespassers into the Mountain’s waiting arms.

He doesn’t follow underground, despite knowing the place as well as his own pocket. He has spent hours cataloguing rack upon rack of gear, dreaming of the day they would stir the war machines into life again and lay waste upon the savages.

Emerson counts to fifty, then stalks up to the open trapdoor quickly, grabbing the handle and pushing with a grunt of effort.

The metal bangs shut with a squeaking of hinges and he quickly rotates the handle, sealing the Sky people inside.

He thumbs his radio on with satisfaction, reporting in.

“Phase One complete. Over.”

“Understood,” the operative on the other side replies flatly, “Operation Rubicon is a go.”

There is silence, then a hiss of static and a different voice fills his ears.

“Well done Emerson,” the connection twists strangely, and there is the hint of an animal whine trapped in between Cage’s words. Emerson fidgets with the antenna to clear the signal, “begin with phase two.”

* * *

  

Anya curses heatedly as she feels her balance slip, her body slide inexorably down the rump of the bucking mount. She tries to hold on to the reins and Clarke with equal desperation and loses them both, tumbling to the ground, body tucked instinctively in a graceful dive and roll away from stomping hooves.

She regains her feet in one fluid motion and unsheathes her sword with a deadly whisper of metal. She shuffles in a wary circle and when her gaze alights on the bestial creature pressing the blonde into the ground, she gives voice to her anguish and charges in her defence.

She has barely the time to sway to one side as talons thrust wickedly, aiming to pierce her flank and brings her weapon down, a promise of death in the downswing. The arm is jerked back then forward again, testing her guard, hardened, chitinous claws drawing sparks from the polished steel. Anya’s eyes narrow as she is forced to delay her rescue and take stock of her opponent. Behind her, Clarke growls and grunts with pain and effort, the sounds reassuring her the girl is still alive, but for how long she cannot tell.

The Twisted One facing her is, must have been, a woman. What is left of the feminine form is a lecherous parody, breasts forever empty of milk swaying obscenely as the thing tries again and again to score her flesh. The warrior refuses to let her gaze travel southward, to the brazenly displayed nudity, yet every other detail is material enough for a thousand nightmares.

The Alpha aches to end the confrontation quickly. Frustration and haste have the better of her judgment, she overextends her thrust and pays dearly as a line of fire scores the side of her ribcage. Hot blood seeps through opened skin and down her belly, giving her pause. The Twisted One senses hesitation and presses the advantage, forcing her back again and again, in a whirlwind of parries that leaves her arm trembling with fatigue and her lungs burning. Yet the monster is full with the smell of her blood and she watches as its snout goes slack with lust, eyes emptying of the little tactical reasoning it still possesses.

She sees the opening she needs and when the creature spreads its arms wide and charges in a mockery of embrace, she swings two handed and opens it up from collarbone to groin. The stench of ruptured, sickened flesh makes her gag, as the insides of the beast spill to the ground, grey with disease. The Twisted one falls to its knees, a pitiful wail rising from its cavernous maw, as it tries and fails to keep itself together with shaky hands. Fluid yellow with rot cascades down its open belly and the ground beneath is soaked through with it, leaves and grass bubbling and running into sludge as if doused with acid.

Anya wipes the smouldering blade clean with a grimace and whirls around, but she has barely taken a step before the situation really registers. The battle rages around her, _Trikru_ and monsters coming together and breaking apart like a flowing river, never stilled for more than a moment. Clarke and the Twisted One bent over her are frozen as if carved in stone, the girl’s hand clasped around the creature’s wrist as it pushes her into the earth, her knuckles whitened by the effort. She is about to shout her mate’s name, when the standstill is broken and with a supreme show of force the girl jolts up and bites into the tender flesh under the creature’s jaw.

There is a strangled yowl as the Twisted One falls backwards, body contorted in pain and surprise. Clarke’s hands claw at its face, while blood turns her golden tresses to deep russet. Her scraping nails find purchase, fingers hooking into the monster’s eye sockets, digging without mercy and rupturing the eyeballs. It flails wildly trying to disloge her, almost pushing to its feet as Anya watches aghast, but then it flops onto its back with a gurgle of defeat and Clarke straddles it, hands viscous with fluid, mouth working at its throat.

Time kicks into motion and Anya moves, closing the distance between them, hooking her arms around Clarke’s waist, attempting to tear her away.

“It’s dead, Clarke, “ she shouts, the creature’s limbs twitching weakly as life drains out of it, “let go!”

The Omega’s body is a wrathful mass of quivers and snarls and she doesn’t appear to hear or care. Bones snap under her relentless attack, more blood hazes the air. Anya’s arms burn and again she risks losing her hold on the girl.

“Lexa!”

The roar cuts through the din of battle and the Commander appears at her side, dodging a clumsy attack before Gustus rams the last of the creatures through with a barbed spear. Together they manage to haul Clarke back, her face a mask of dripping gore, a fistful of flesh coming away between her teeth with a sodden rip. Her irises are a  tempest of dark blue and yellow streaks like lightning crisscross them. She pants as they hold her between them, mouth dropping open in search of fresh air and the half chewed morsels slither down her chin and onto her shirt.

“Clarke,” Lexa starts soothingly, but is answered by a low, menacing growl. Before their hands can tighten around her, the Omega whips away, her shirt ripping so that they are left with a fistful of cloth and she darts off, a streak of blood slicked motion, plunging into the woods ahead.

They exchange a startled glance, before giving chase, the _Heda_ shouting orders over her shoulder. As they crash through vines and low hanging branches, without a care for stealth, Anya feels the cold hand of fear slither down her back.

She met Clarke’s eyes briefly before she bolted and there was nothing human staring back.

* * *

 

 

“This place is a damn labyrinth,” Wells grumbles, irritably shifting his satchel. Octavia, who brings up the rear, tends to agree, but saves much needed breath. Her throat is clogged with dust anyway, and her legs have started to drag as they venture deeper and deeper into the military compound. She is willing to admit, if only to herself, that the place gives her the fucking creeps. She lets go of the gun for a moment, palms slicked with nervous sweat, and wipes them on the fabric of her jeans.

It doesn’t help that the lightsticks Finn scavenged as they went give off a hellish glow that makes their shadows dance and morphs them into half glimpsed monsters following their every step.

The elation she had felt as they came upon the vehicle entrance has turned to lead in her belly, their joyous hollers strangled into nothingness when they realized the opening mechanism had been disabled.

Octavia feels more than ever that they are trespassers in a mausoleum and all the horror stories Bellamy used to read her in the middle of the night, when it was safe to be above the floor come back to her, haunting the blackness around their moving bubble of light.

An unreachable itch between her shoulderblades makes her glance behind, and she fancies there are a pair of orange eyes staring right back from the dark, but when she blinks they are gone, the illusion dissolved and she puffs out a breath she had not realized she was holding.

_Stop it, idiot._

Octavia tries without success to untangle the knots in her nerves and lets out a yelp when she knocks into something soft, too distracted by what she thinks she saw to notice the guys have stopped.

“Watch it!” Wells swiftly faces her and reaches out, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. She mumbles an apology and finds odd comfort in his touch. She cannot imagine what she would do if she was down here alone.

“Why have we stopped?” She asks, more to occupy her fretting thoughts than anything else. She honestly does not mind, and takes a moment to lean against a shelf. She doesn’t dare slide down to the cold floor as appealing as the idea is. She doubts she would get up anytime soon if she gave in to tiredness.

“Look,” Wells points to their last burning torch, held aloft by Finn.

“I don’t see…” she begins, and then she _does_ see it, the way the flames bend to one side, whipped by an almost imperceptible breeze.

“Wind,” When she looks at Finn, he is smiling like a fool and she finds herself grinning back as they hurry, using the way the fire snaps about like a compass.

Their unconventional guide soon leads them to a barren wall.

This time Octavia curses loudly, the boys’ eyes growing as wide as they would go at the level of profanity that tumbles freely from her lips.

“It’s a fucking dead end!” She snarls, walking up to the wall and laying into it with a savage kick. She regrets her outburst as soon as a dull ache spreads from her toes and up her leg.

“Hold on a sec,” Finn is running his hand up and down the smooth surface, face almost pressed into it and his breathing hikes excitedly as he seems to find what he is looking for,

“A door!”

His laugh is contagious and she and Wells crowd closer, adding their lights to his. Her eyes find it almost immediately when he points it out, a narrow outline that breaks the solidity of the wall, and she can feel the sigh of cool air coming from the other side.

“How the hell do we open it?” Wells casts worriedly about, then his gaze fastens onto a length of metal, flattened on one end. It resembles a crowbar, but longer and heavier and the boys nod to each other as they settle it against the shallow groove to gain a foothold. The iron rod is long enough that both of them can grab around it and put strained muscles to work. Octavia turns her back on them, aiming the rifle at the blockade of gloom besieging the small group.

The more she strains her eyes, the more fantastic shapes take form, ephemeral ghosts whispering across her mind. Aiming down sights does not improve things, and when the door finally gives with a quiet grumble, she shuffles backwards, shoulders dipping slightly with relief.

A soft whistle of displaced air is all the warning she gets, the space above her suddenly filled with a descending shadow. The reddish hue of her glowstick is refracted by burning orange irises, shimmers across needle-thin fangs and she reflexively raises her gun and lets loose a short burst of automatic fire.

The bullets rip towards the target, but slice through empty air and whine away, lost in the distance.

“Run!”

Octavia squeezes the trigger again, a weapon she isn’t bothering to aim kicking against her hipbone. She sweeps from left to right, gun’s muzzle flaring, flashes of light revealing a mind-conjured terror made flesh.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Wells protests before they all hear the snap of teeth nearby, the screech of nails on metal, a foetid wheeze that seems to come from everywhere around them.

Octavia half turns and shoves hard against his chest, and he stumbles backwards and into Finn. The three of them pile through the doorway and trample down a flight of stairs so steep they cannot see the bottom.

There is no time to wonder where the stairs will lead them as they rush downward, leaping from step to step, stumbling against the walls, their feeble light bouncing wildly as they flee. Metal structures give way to bedrock, weeping with condensation and the air around them grows colder, heavy with the dank smell of wet soil.

Octavia cannot hear sounds of pursuit above their panicked panting and the echoes of their boots on the hard ground, but freezing perspiration soaks her through and her insides clench in horror.

The passage they are traversing is pitch black, the darkness a physical weight on their shoulders. The light reaches only a few paces ahead of their racing legs and more than once they stumble against each other or careen off the rough walls as their toes get caught on unseen rocks.

The breeze grows stronger against Octavia’s face and she blinks her eyes in disbelief as the darkness ever so slowly washes out into gray. Details emerge from the murk, Wells clutching the gun to his side as he runs half a meter ahead and Finn, pale with fear as she dares throw a look over her shoulders.

She screams when a brutal paw seizes her friend by the strap of his rifle and drags him backwards so violently the belt saws an angry mark into his neck.

“Go!” He chokes out as she slows down against all instinct to try and make a grab for his whirling arm.

A hand closes around her other wrist, tugging urgently and she yells again, believing it is another of those...those…. _things_.

Wells pulls her along with a groan, eyes holding Finn’s for a second before the dark haired boy is swallowed by the blackness. Even the light of the stick around his neck winks out abruptly, as if the darkness had become a willful thing, hungry for anything with a semblance of life.

Something hot spatters Octavia’s cheek, but she has no time to wonder what it is as they run towards the opening at the end of the cave, and into the blinding glare beyond.

She tries not to heed the sopping burbles that crawl into her ear, sloshing behind her eyes and down her throat to her very core, but she cannot block them out, nor the imagery they birth into her tortured mind.

Later, when their legs desert them and they slump into each other- deadly tired- she touches the stickiness on her face. Her fingers come away tinted with red.

 

* * *

 

All she hears is breathing. _Her_ breathing? She is not sure. It’s shallow and fast, coming ispurts, the hint of a whine after each puff. Her chest burns, heaves, lungs expand at a frantic pace, contract, filled with the liquid touch of agony.

Something scrapes the skin of her hand, pricks her palm and she hisses at the sudden stab. She feels blood well inside the punctured flesh and hisses. Voices calling her name drift to her, stroke her earlobes with a tenderness the other being inside her rebels to. They tell her to stop and she wants to, feeling that the fibers of her muscles are about to burst apart and fragment her bones to nothing but dust.

A snarl cancels all other sounds and her throat strangely hurts, but when she tries to swallow she grimaces, the taste on her tongue so bitter her eyes water. She wills her legs to stop, to rest and her mind is filled with white fur and blue eyes that seem to contain the spark of a dying star. The wolf inside makes herself known and Clarke feels as if her soul is held between fangs slowly closing onto it, tearing their way to madness.

She tries to push back, wills the beast down and her right leg cramps making her stumble, but the wolf won’t abide her refusal and red streaks of anguish open up like festering cuts into her heart as the fangs tighten, sinking deeper into her.

Clarke is squeezed into a corner of her own mind as the wolf rides her leaving the Omega no choice but to follow.

She stops abruptly, but knows it is not her doing and the wolf inside howls, making her scream in unison at the steep ravine that bars their way. Sudden crashes at her back spin her body around and she crouches low, watchful, waiting, the acrid scent of challenging Alphas making her nostrils flare.

Her pursuers appear, steel teeth scabbarded, hands empty and raised in a token of calm. The wolf gurgles a laugh, and Clarke hears its bark rebound inside her skull. It sounds deceptively like her voice, but she detects the bestial undercurrent, the clenching of maws that make the chuckle cutting and ferrous.

“Clarke.” Armor creaks as the brown haired she crouches down, eyes tangling on a level with hers. She feels the pull, the inevitable magnetism as the gaze, thick with power, ensnares her. Her lips peel back exposing sharp canines in a rictus of anger, her lips crack and bleed. It hurts Clarke, but the wolf pushes at her face, deep, furious lines sully her brow and her limbs quiver like water brought to boiling point.

“Clarke,” the woman repeats, green eyes collected, stilled like deep-wood ponds on a windless day.

The wolf senses a crack in the facade, a tremor that catches on the beginning of her name, making the end of it brittle like thin crystal. She hurts, rejection and loneliness suckling at her breast and Clarke is lugged forward and watches in horror as her hands reach for Lexa’s throat.

A yell pushes her mouth wide open as they collide, the Alpha’s iron shell scouring flesh, digging against her ribcage.

She feels the rapid pulse against the palm of her hand and the wolf howls in victory as her fingers spasm shut around the yielding flesh.

Clarke looks down and the wolf stares out at the prey writhing beneath, green watered down to the pale of new grass with pain.

“K-K...la…” Muscles strain against her hold, words fizzling out as the windpipe is slowly crushed. The wolf jeers, surrender like refreshing balm on her battered frame, before something hits her brutally hard and she careens away, mouth biting into dirt and rotten leaves. The ground tilts and the wolf reels, spouting madly at finding herself on her back again.

Wind, cracking with the frost of deadly winter leeches strength and warmth from her as tough, calloused hands seize her by her wrists and a great burden settles across her hips. Power spirals around her limbs tightening with ease, the chill of it rimming her lungs with frost. She spasms, resisting the call to submission.

Convulsions free one of her arms, the attacker’s nails leaving deep gouges on the inside of her wrist. She feels the heat of her blood melt the vicious influence and balls her aching hand into a fist, smashing it into the face hovering over her and the girl trapped inside a body jerked around like a meat puppet succumbs to her delirium.

 

* * *

 

Lexa struggles to her knees, feeling the bruising flesh of her throat with a pained grimace, just it time to see Clarke’s fist connect with Anya’s cheek. The woman’s face is turned to the side by the force of the blow, her own teeth catching on a trembling lip and tearing into it. Lexa lurches to her feet, sways then staggers to them. She drops down without her usual grace and her hand shoots out, the grip so hard she feels the girl’s bones grind and shift underneath her skin.

Her own power unfurls, bubbling forth, exuding from her skin in a curtain of sweat that burns with the sulphur of the ever seething fire pits far to the south. Her gaze scours the taut lines of Clarke’s face carefully and settles on the moment the wolf’s clout is broken, just before the girl’s scent softens with confusion.

Clarke spasms one last time in their combined grasp and her bladder releases, the white wolf abasing herself in the only way she knows.

The air between them is stained with the smell of the blonde’s piss, caustic with her humiliation.

Blue irises blink awake, the yellow melted away and Lexa sees the indigo turn to the pale sky-blue of a wintry morning, perfect and unreachable even as Clarke’s eyes wet with bewilderment and shame.

She slowly releases her iron grip, and Anya subtly moves, and pushes the blonde into her arms.

Before she can think of words that will reassure her mate, Gustus comes through the underbrush. His nose wrinkles and his face becomes thunderous when he sees the handprint on her throat. She angles her body so he can take a look at Clarke, and as his stony eyes wander to the dampness spreading down her pants, his look changes to one of ill-disguised concern.

A slight flush darkens the skin around his eyes and he dips his head down and away, shoulders pulled back, hands relaxing at his sides. He acknowledges that what transpired is a matter between the three mates and Lexa watches on, almost fascinated, as his teeth grind together, chewing on the inside of his mouth while he battles with his wolf who wants him to go and curl protectively around the Omega, touch her and lend Clarke his stability.

“They are all dead, _Heda_ and the scouts report the woods are quiet now,” he mutters gruffly, studiously looking away from them.

“Casualties?” She stifles the anger that threatens to swallow her senses, not wanting it to affect Clarke.

“Three dead, five wounded,” he pauses, “Asena lost her arm.”

There is nothing she can say that will ease the misery dulling his gaze and nods, heart heavy.

“We will ensure she rests in a village tonight. We all need it.”

They need to lick their wounds and draft a plan to deal a blow to the Twisted Ones that will bleed them enough to send them scurrying away. Winter is fast approaching and it makes them insatiable.

She wishes she had the resources to end the threat and those behind it, but she knows it would be suicide for _Trikru_ to hunt alone, and the other clans balk with superstition at the prospect. Plus there are always the cursed Ice Wolves to account for.

Gustus bows once and whips around, marching off to rebuild her warriors into formation. When the last caliginous flakes of his trace have left the clearing, she feels Clarke’s hands batter her away weakly and the girl tumbles away as her embrace slackens slightly in surprise.

“Klark,” she spits, voice still roughened by the phantom of the girl’s fingers around her neck. There is more than a note of warning in the way she rounds off the name, but the blonde tiredly shakes her lowered head and then a sound, half cough, half ripple sloshes inside her chest.

Understanding what is about to happen the Commander scoots closer and pulls hair soaked through with blood away from the blonde’s face, as her shoulders heave and she retches noisily into the ground. Bites of half digested meat bubble up her throat and plop wetly to the forest’s floor and she keeps heaving until nothing more comes out.

Lexa feels the girl relax as the last of her energy is spent and catches her before she can drop face-first in her own mess.

Anya uncorks her canteen and wets a piece of cloth and together they clean the Omega as best as they can, before Lexa shakes out her scarlet shawl and wraps it around the girl to hide the traces of her shame. She trusts that Gustus will keep his mouth shut about it, but Clarke has endured enough indignity because of something she cannot yet control. Her scarf is imbued with enough of her scent that her people will not distinguish the piss it conceals.

When she sneaks her arms around her mate, intending to carry her, a blue-green sea of pain greets her.

“I can walk,” Clarke murmurs, her voice thickened by the bile that burned her throat. Lexa nods silently and offers her hand, but the girl just stares up at her and only when Anya also extends hers, she pointedly takes both, hauling herself to her feet with their help.

Lexa sighs, wishing that things between the two of them were easier, knowing it isn’t possible, and they slowly made their way back to the others.

When they come upon the column, the Alpha’s trained eyes quickly assess the situation. Nyko is tending the wounded to one side, while warriors are cutting branches and using their cloaks to build stretchers for those that can’t walk. Others stand guard on nearby trees and a few grim-faced men are dragging the mangled, defiled bodies of the Twisted Ones to a side. When the first few spot Clarke, they stop in their tracks and soon everyone is staring at her.

Lexa feels pride wash over her as the girl doesn’t shy away from the scrutiny, but she also reads the near exhaustion in the lines etched around her mouth and knows that perhaps Clarke is too tired to care.

A clatter starts amid the warriors as they slowly drum the butt of their spears on their shields.

“They honor your kill,” Lexa murmurs into her ear, but Clarke doesn’t turn, moving haltingly like a sleepwalker.  It dawns on Lexa that she is slipping into shock and when she allows her wolf to reach out gingerly, the white is a tight ball, hiding her muzzle from the Alpha’s prodding. She catches Anya’s eye above the blonde’s head and her mate shakes her head slightly.

 _Not here._ Her face says.

Lexa blinks in understanding and places the softest of touches on Clarke’s forearm, steering her towards her waiting horse.

Clarke does not protest when she is hoisted onto the saddle and the Commander swings up behind her, nudging the animal forward with a tap of her knee.

Anya walks by them as they keep an easy pace, a hand on the mount’s flank, reassuringly close to Clarke’s leg.

The girl is so rigid in the circle of Lexa’s arms that the woman moves two fingers discreetly to her uninjured wrist. Her pulse is slow, but steady and her back unclenches slightly as she takes in the Omega’s scent.    

Everything is layered in shame and fatigue and underneath she perceives the burning of fresh cuts and the throb of the girl’s shoulder. She smells Clarke’s blood and the Twisted One’s and they are so mixed she cannot tell if the cauterized wound has reopened without undressing the girl.

If they were fully bonded she would feel the lacerations like impressions on her own skin, the same way she feels Anya’s bruised cheek as if she had received the punch herself. She looks down at the older warrior and even though she cannot see that side of her face, she knows the result of Clarke’s rage will be spectacular. She suppresses a snort, tightening her hold around the Omega and Anya’s eyes flick upwards at the sound.

“Your own bruises will be quite something,” her mate shoots back, guessing the source of her sudden amusement.

Lexa has loosened her hair so they will cover the marks on her skin - some of her warriors are still unsettled by the way Clarke came into the Pack, waiting for the girl to show a taint or turn rabid.

At Anya’s good natured jab, she runs a finger along the side of her neck and grumbles under her breath.

The moment of levity dissipates as they draw close to the village and riders approach the battered warriors in greeting. Indra herself leads them and nearly loses her composure at the sight of Clarke.

“It is true!” she splutters, pulling up next to Lexa and staring, battling amazement away from the hard planes of her usually stoic face.

“ _Sha_ Indra,” Anya takes her attention away from Clarke and the coolness of her voice stalls further questions. Soon the two of them fall into talks of patrols and preparations to anticipate the harsher weather.

The Commander is grateful to her mate, and the moment of intimacy with Clarke, when, even surrounded by her people, she manages to subtly run her hands along the girl’s forearms in consolation. She has not missed the small tremor of the blonde’s back as Indra approached, the shifting in the line of her jaw as muscles hardened.

She is gratified by a soft sigh, and Clarke seems to emerge from her torpor as they enter the village proper.

Lexa stops the horse in front of an empty hut, no different from the rest, but painted with hers and Anya’s scent. It doesn’t feel as lived in as their den in Polis, but it is a refuge and the Omega tilts her head curiously, the glaze that dimmed her eyes partially lifted. She still will not meet Lexa’s gaze for long, but she lets them herd her inside and away from the curious looks of the villagers. The Elder will surely insist they stay until they are recovered enough to travel without more incident and throw her Alpha’s and the newfound Omega a feast. She loves drink and stories as much as her lowest warrior, but not this night. When Indra tries to follow her, Anya bars the way with a baring of teeth.

“Tomorrow General,” Lexa calls from further inside, “tomorrow we will talk. See that we are not disturbed.” The air is charged with their strain and the dark-skinned warrior hurriedly backs out, posting guards at their door.

Lexa notes with satisfaction that Gustus had sent orders ahead, and the objects laid out for them match her desires so eerily well it is almost like he read her mind. She shrugs, telling herself she should not be surprised. After all he had seen her grow into the woman she is, an avatar of his teachings, except perhaps she failed in learning temperance.

Clarke staggers and she gently pushes her to sit on a bench against the wall. A round wooden tub has been dragged inside and she hums to herself in satisfaction when she notices it is big enough for two. Perfect for what she has in mind.

She cups the blonde’s cheek firmly, if with care, and holds her still so that her eyes cannot escape. When she is sure Clarke won’t avert her gaze, she lowers herself to her knees in front of her, and the girl gapes, taken aback.

“Allow us to serve,” Anya joins her mate and they watch as Clarke looks from one to the other, her mouth opening and closing without a sound.

“I...I…” she stammers finally, red splashing her pale complexion. Lexa stretches her hand up, the tips of her fingers brushing delicately against her lips.

“ _Shusha_ little wolf,”

The girl quietens, too struck by the contrast between the roughness of her Alpha’s and the tenderness of the women hidden beneath. She will learn, Lexa muses as they remove her boots then pluck the shawl, now rigid with drying blood away from her frame. Without the shield of her own musk, the stench of Clarke’s submission becomes apparent. They pull her to her feet and Anya’s hands gently move to her waistband.

They both feel her freeze, but when she tries to look away Lexa shifts with her and almost drowns in a sea of blue that seems to have no bottom. She weaves her power deftly, a tapestry of care that sticks to Clarke like a spider’s web, there and not, the strands of the Alpha’s call no thicker than a hair, softer than silk.

The girl, who had vainly tried to conceal her still damp crotch by crossing her arms over it, allows Anya to pull the garment down and steadies herself with one hand against the taller woman, stepping away. Her eyes do wander down to the offending pile of cloth and she winces in disgust.

Anya takes a step back and leaves Lexa to uncover Clarke completely. Her pale skin is rusted with blood and the Alpha rumbles, top lip pulling back when her chest is revealed, a purplish bruise distinguishable under the gore where the Twisted One held her mate down. Its talons have dug shallow nicks just below Clarke’s collarbone and partially shredded the bandages that wind around her ribcage. Lexa removes the ruined linen with the utmost care, and breath leaves her in a relieved rush when she finds the meat of Clarke’s shoulder intact, the angry brand of the iron beginning to fade into a pink, lucid scar.

The calming sound of pouring water pulls the Omega’s attention away and her gaze moves behind Lexa to the tub that Anya is filling to the brim.

Clarke shudders with want, and her eyes flare with a delight that warms Lexa’s heart, before her expression sombers when she gazes down at her nakedness and takes in her sorry state.

The Commander offers her hand and the girl takes it this time, too entranced by the promise of a bath to remember to be ashamed. Lexa tries very hard to still the flutter in her chest and discard the heat that starts in her lower belly. Clarke’s beauty shines through the grime and it affects her. Anya feels it too, her hazel eyes pooling with desire as they roam the Omega’s body freely while she is distracted.

Clarke gets into the water without prompting or much help and lets out a sigh, the shadow of a smile tugging at her lips as she lowers herself until she is submerged to her chin. Lexa watches her eyes flutter close, her head recline against the side of the tub, then she undresses silently as she shares one last look with Anya before the older woman leaves her and Clarke alone. They had devised the plan together as they rode, exchanging a silent conversation in battle cant, a series of hand signals _Trikru gona_ use when stealth is required of them.

It had been Anya that had come up with the idea, having noticed how Clarke’s wolf seemed to resent Lexa’s indecision regarding the girl. The white-furred beast sensed both the black’s desire and the Commander’s sorrow for her lost lover. She felt rejected and the ambush had been a catalyst for her unspent fury.

Lexa knows her own guilt is hurting Clarke and smirks bitterly at the irony of it. She leads armies and eleven clans call her _Heda_ , yet she cannot order her own heart to mend itself faster.

She dips into the water and some of it drips down the outer side of the tub, giving her away. Clarke’s eyes fly open and when she realizes how close Lexa is, she tries to melt back into the wood, eyes stormy with emotion.

“Your hair is a mess, _Klark,_ ” she explains patiently, waiting for the girl to calm down, “let me help.”

She stands in front of the blonde, steaming water lapping at her thighs and perhaps for the first time Clarke really looks at her with completely human eyes, not driven by the wolf or blinded by pain.

Lexa stands unmoving, her skin shining with perspiration and drops her masks. Alpha, _Heda_ , mate, she strips it all away and allows Clarke in like she had begun to do when she had to leave her behind to hunt. She had shown her eyes brimming with tears then, and now she lets the saltiness fall freely, silently crying for Clarke, and Costia and finally that part of herself that died with her lover and she never properly mourned.

She shows herself for what she is, a girl still human, still vulnerable and the fortress she had closeted herself in crumbles.   

* * *

 

 

The tears take her by surprised. They hang for a moment from Lexa’s eyelashes, before dropping to the smooth skin of her cheek, shining like dew. Clarke follows their path along the chiseled cheekbones, the sculpted jaw which softens as Lexa tears herself open and displays her grief. The tears caress the plump lips, wet her chin then fall to the water below and merge with the liquid that is shaded with the pink of diluted gore.

_So much pain. So much death._

What she is witnessing is a private side of Lexa that only Anya sees. She feels honored and scared, yet the same desire to heal that prompted her to follow in her mother’s footsteps, pushes her towards the woman in front of her. Both of them are suffering equally if for different reasons, and perhaps the only way they can recover is together.

She wiggles away from the edge of the tub and turns, giving her back to Lexa and collecting her tresses, floating heavily just below the water’s surface, to push them behind her shoulders.

She had not noticed Lexa had been holding her breath, until she hears the quiet sound again and the level of the water increases further as the woman sits down behind her. Lexa’s toned legs brace on either side of her, not quite touching, and even though she does not move forward, Clarke feels the heat coming off her body. She is particularly conscious of the warmth she feels building between the brunette’s legs and resettles her own, a faint beat starting at her core.

She shuts her eyes again, feeling more water pour over her head, then Lexa’s fingers tangle with her curls and work soap into her scalp.

“Lavender?” She tries to bite back the word that shatters the silence between them, but Lexa does not seem to mind.

“ _Sha,_ ” the reply is whispered into her neck, hot breath tickling the tender flesh of her earlobe. She shivers pleasurably as the brunette’s fingers draw intricate patterns on her head, unknotting her hair, removing the clotted blood.

“My mother used to gather it and dry it out,” the Commander continues. She lifts to a crouch and retrieves a cloth from the nearby bench, before dropping back down with a splash. She wipes it along Clarke’s neck and dabs the cuts on her collarbone. The hot water pricks the open skin, but the blonde swallows the pain, glad for the contact. She wants to know more, but reins in her impatience and Lexa finally resumes, “she would make little bags of it and hide it in my pockets, or under my pillow,” her laugh is wistful, but pleasing with the merriment of a hidden waterfall in a hot summer day, “it reminds me of her.”

Clarke casts thought to her own mother, wanting to give something back to Lexa, one of her own memories as a sign that she is willing to open up the the other girl.

“She always smelled like medicine,” there is no need to say who she is referring to, “we have...had plants on Farm Station,” she falters as Lexa shifts behind her and glances back, catching the girl’s eyebrows rising in confusion, “a part of our...home…” she isn’t sure how she can explain the Ark. Maybe she should draw it.

Lexa nods her on, “we would go there sometimes after she was done in the infirmary and help tend to the medicinal plants. The smell would linger on us for days after, but I loved it.”

Her thoughts turn inward as loss washes over her. She looks up when Lexa’s hands gently spin her around so they are facing each other and regards the woman with awe as the cool green of her eyes brightens with kindness. She gulps, throat suddenly dry when her gaze slides lower, to bronzed skin and small, firm breasts and the hint of a blush heats her cheeks. She feels moved by Lexa, enticed by her. The thumping between her legs increases, and this time it isn’t the wolf, but the attraction is all her own.

The Commander chooses that moment to plunge the cloth between them and swiping it gently between her legs. Clarke yelps, startled, and jerks back, fearing Lexa will feel the throbbing of her sex beneath her fingers, remembering the degradation scorching her inner thighs.

The brunette rumbles soothingly, and her free hand rubs along Clarke’s calf, coming to rest on her knee.

“What your wolf made you do is normal, Klark. Natural.”

Clarke bites her lower lip, lowering her eyes and creating miniature waves between them with idle hands. Two natures exist inside her now, sides of the same coin and she wishes it would be easier to make them match. Instead she feels strung between two horses, that at times gallop together and on occasion towards opposite directions. She stretches helplessly between them and it will kill her if she doesn’t learn to handle the reins.

She says nothing, but Lexa nods to her regardless, understanding the unspoken plea for help. They finish the bath in silence and afterwards they sit back on the bench, wrapped in towels as they wait for Anya to come back. They are content to let their tongues rest, their bond too fragile for insistent questioning. They are far from healed and trust between them is a burgeoning thing that could die just as quickly as it bloomed.

Sometimes they sit a little closer, pressing a shoulder into the body next to theirs, drawing sighs from each other as they move, shared smiles and timid blushes. They do not remark on these things and when Clarke succumbs to weariness and her head rests on Lexa’s shoulder, the brunette becomes a breathing statue, happy to be in the same space a while longer.

* * *

 

Her throne is an impressive thing, carved from bone-white stone, but it is not the one she desires. She dreams of a different one, composed of gnarled wood and antlers taken as trophies by the First. It is said every Commander that ever sat on it, added to the collection and that some of the bones were so old they predated the clans.

She does not place much faith in rumors whispered around the fire, preferring the solid reality of a blade parting the flesh of her enemies. Still she dreams of the throne when she is asleep, and pictures it in her mind when she is awake.

Nia shivers, pulling the wolf’s pelt more tightly around her shoulders. The first ice storms have come, forceful gales that are but a pale image of true winter. Her fingers torment the silver fur absentmindedly. She knows what the southern clans think of this tradition, that has been practiced since their clan was born on lands so desolate and frigid they had to fight with tooth and claw to survive.

The Ice Wolves unfailingly revert to their animal form upon death, and their kin recover the pelts and wear them in honor of the fallen. She has heard the mutters of the weaklings during her times in Polis. It’s morbid they say, vile to desecrate the dead so.

She sneers contemptuously. How their tune will change when they bend their knee to her!

The doors at the end of the long hall open and she raises her head.

“Come,” she orders curtly and her Champion steps forward. Skoll, also known as Bear Claw for the bear he killed to prove himself a warrior. He is huge, even out of his armor and his hands look ready to crush and rip despite the absence of the infamous gloves he adorned with the bear’s claws.

He stops a respectful distance away and drops to one knee, his single braid swinging like a snow cat’s tail.

“Are the rumors true?” she leans forward, her blue-gray gaze piercing as the chill of the lengthening nights.  

“Yes Queen,” he grunts, mangling the words with distaste, “the Alphas have a new bitch.”

A nasty smile plays along a mouth that only curves upwards in cruelty.

“Alert the outposts. Have the Fangs collect more food from our farmers.”

He raises his eyes in question, “we attack?” His voice is tinged with hope and incredulity. His arms quiver and his hands tighten into eager fists.

“We prepare.”

After he leaves with fresh orders, Nia stands and allows herself a tinkling laugh, crips with recalled lust. Her mind goes back to the Heda’s previous whore, and sweet wetness dripping to her bedroom’s floor as the wretched thing whimpered in heat. She recalls the silken folds of her drenched cunt as she rutted inside. She throws her head back howling with her glee, and wonders what this new bitch will taste like.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small note on Clarke's behaviour during part of the chapter- what I wanted to convey was the wolf taking over her human body since she is unable to shift- and so her behaviour is that a wolf would choose. Her attacking an Alpha may seem a bit OOC but I hope i explained the forces warring inside her well enough. Also showing submission by peeing is a common wolf behaviour- and that is what I was aiming for. I think it fits well with the moment and do hope the comfort afterwards makes up for it.


	9. AUTHOR'S NOTE - Just Hold and Don't Let Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick note, before I put the new chapter up next week.

The new chapter is coming this week, but I thought I needed to write to you and say a few things.

I owe you an apology (at least I think I do) for not writing as consistently as I'd like, or as other authors manage. Some of you I am sure follow my other fics, and maybe you wish I wrote only one at a time, but updated often. 

The thing is I tried to and i can't. 

I was looking forward to the summer, July and August are slow months at work, and I thought I could get much more done during my days off as well...which didn't happen. My brain didn't stop thinking about the stories I want to share with you, but I seemed to lack the energy to move them onto paper.

On the brighter side of things, I think I needed that hiatus, because since the end of August I have picked up pace and cannot seem to stop- the summer brought some trials in real life (work..sigh), but also new ideas and a steady stream of collabs with my twin Jude81 - a lot of which will be clexa so watch out. 

It also (sigh) brought me new fics, but I want you all to know that none of the stories in progress are abandoned. Sometimes, it's just that I am not in the right headspace for a particular fic. Believe me, it can be depressing to stare at an outline and knowing where you want to go with it, and then being defeated by the blank page.

Lupercalia is my most popular fic, and I would not be progressing as a writer without your support and feedback. Every comment I receive, every kudo is something that pushes me to do better, to work harder to improve my style and my stories. Knowing that what I write makes people happy, sad, aroused or what have you, knowing that sometimes my words can touch you, that is the greatest gift to me. 

So thank you, for your patience and your support  and I will see you later this week with the new chapter. 

What's to come? Well, for starters Clarke, Anya and Lexa finally TALK, and I am so, so relieve they do because the journey so far has been bumpy and smetimes I just wanted to smack their heads together. Healing and trust take time though, but yes we are finally there. We'll also get to some political strife, someone getting punched and the plots drawing closer. 

Can you tell I am excited to being back with the wolves? 

Again, a thank you and an apology. Thank you for taking the time to read my work, and I am sorry if sometimes I leave you hanging longer than originally intended to.

May we meet again. In the meantime - ste yuj

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke listens in on a confession, and makes some revelations of her own. When it seems the Alphas and their Omega have some time for themselves, a dire message is delivered to Lexa. 
> 
> Back at the drop-ship Raven awakens to a reality far grimmer than anything she had prepared for and blood runs freely under the Mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised here is the latest chapter. So, there is a part that really, really wasn't planned, but the characters took it into their hands and surprised their author. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what it is, but if I must give a hint, it concerns our favorite three ladies. Well, some of them.
> 
> There are a few songs I listened to while writing this, in particular Sledgehammer as performed by Landon Austin and Charity Vance, Oceans by the Gardiner Sisters and I See Fire by Ed Sheran. I am not saying to listen to these while reading...but if you are into that and have spotify handy then... ;)
> 
> As usual kudos and comments (and questions!) are deeply treasured.

Clarke’s head is heavy with sleep.

She lays on a bed of furs rich with the scent of the Alphas, her body completely relaxed by the hot bath. Something scratches at the edges of her consciousness, but she wills it away, content to lay in a half daze.

She has a vague memory of Lexa pulling her from the hot water gently, of a soft towel wrapped tightly around her body. Clarke isn’t sure how she has gotten into the bed. She must have fallen asleep and the Alpha carried her there.

Her jaws crack wide open with a mouth-splitting yawn and the tugging at the edges of her mind becomes more insistent. A low rumble echoes between her ribs and she rolls over with an annoyed huff. The pelts are soft against her cheek and she buries her nose in them, seeking the comfort of the Alphas’ scents. The small hut is coated in their musk, pheromones she realizes as her brain has finally time to sift through all she learned from her biology classes. Her eyes narrow and she sniffs at her hands, then turns her head slightly and buries her nose against a raised arm.

Nothing.

Or rather she can’t tell if she smells any different.

She shrugs, tucking the thought away for another time and struggles up to her elbows, eyes roaming the room. The mournful song of a few crickets confirms what Clarke had suspected. It’s the middle of the night, but she isn’t too surprised at having slept so long.   

The spot next to her is still warm, the furs rumpled, and Lexa’s scent lingers heavier there. The Alpha must have left not long before the blonde woke. A gust of wind, laced with the faintest trace of autumn’s chill, makes the wooden walls around her creak and moan softly. It brings a soft murmur of voices, kept low but deep in conversation and Clarke’s curiosity spurs her to get out of her cocoon.

She regrets it instantly, the air far chillier than she thought, and her skin is creased by goosebumps as she wraps her arms around herself, back wracked by a tide of shivers.

Her eyes scan the room for some clothing, and she spots a big chest tucked away in a shadowy corner. It’s probably her best bet, she thinks as she rushes to it and lifts its lid. She is right, but her hands freeze just above the pile of clothes and she frowns. Clarke remembers her wolf’s reaction when she saw Nyko holding Lexa’s clothes, but this time the beast is quiet. She knows it’s still somewhere inside her, but no guidance is forthcoming. Perhaps, she muses with an inexplicable pang of sadness, she ignored the advice for so long that the wolf just got tired of her. There’s a glimmer of relief inside her heart, gone almost instantly. Does she really believe she will ever be her old self? More importantly, does she really want the wolf gone?

“Screw this,” she mutters under her breath, with a shrug. Certainly the Alphas will be more upset if she catches a cold while standing around naked like an idiot.

She digs a soft shirt and a pair of dark slacks out of the chest, an item from each of the Alphas’ personal wardrobes. Perhaps they’ll be less inclined to be annoyed with her if she takes something from both. Clarke pauses for a moment, a delicate frown leaving a faint line between her eyes, then decides she can do without underwear. It feels too intimate somehow to take theirs.

She shrugs into the clothes hurriedly, the fabric chafing at the new bruise on her chest as she tugs the shirt in place, despite the fact it’s made of a material softer than what they have on the Ark. She fingers the shallow grooves below her collarbone with a tight grimace, and the foul taste of the Twisted One’s blood fills her mouth again as she remembers the ambush with a shudder. It is imperative that she learns to tame her wolf, she’s come too close to death too often to be complacent about it.

The chill against her skin lessens but doesn’t leave her completely, and Clarke turns in a circle, looking for the jacket she was wearing before the attack. She spots it, carelessly thrown across the back of a chair and goes to retrieve it, but she immediately drops it back where she found it with a grimace. Upon closer inspection it’s torn and smeared with the crusted, reeking blood of the Twisted One. Clarke doesn’t know why they kept it, but she is glad she cannot smell her own piss on it.

“I hope they burned the rest of my stuff,” she grumbles, cheeks burning at the memory. She doesn’t remember that much actually, except the two women holding her down on the ground as she writhed, trying to control a body that didn’t feel like hers, and the urge she had felt to melt into the earth beneath her. Shame had set every last one of her nerve endings on fire.

The whispered conversation drifts to her again, reminding her why she got out of bed in the first place. Clarke takes one of the pelts and wraps it around herself, feeling immediately warmer, then shuffles as quietly as she can towards the cabin’s door.

She doesn’t know much about stealth, but the fur smells like Anya and the blonde hopes it will mask her own scent. She doesn’t need her nose to know it’s the Alpha talking right outside, the gruff yet warm tones of the older woman’s voice tickling her ears as she stops behind the door.

It’s been left ajar, and she nudges it ever so gently, hoping that the hinges won’t creak and give her away. Outside the night is brightened by a small fire, Lexa and Anya sitting on a log facing the merry flames, shoulders to the door.

Clarke watches intently as Lexa leans against her mate for a moment, resting her head briefly on Anya’s shoulder.  

“You were right,” the words are barely audible over the popping of the fire, but the blonde can tell from the warmth lining Lexa’s voice that they are said with a half smile, “it helped to be alone with her for a while.”

Anya’s arm goes around the Commander’s waist, the loneliness of the night affording them intimacy.

“She is still coming into her wolf, Lexa. You mustn’t forget that.” Clarke can see Anya’s hand rub small circles on _Heda_ ’s back and the line of the brunette’s shoulders softens.

“I won’t,” she agrees quietly, tossing a stray piece of wood into the fire. The flames hiss higher for a moment, haloing the pair in orange and gold. Suddenly Lexa inches back, half turning towards the other Alpha and Anya’s arm falls away. The Commander unknowingly offers her shadowed profile to Clarke’s stare, the flames bathing her skin into a rich bronze, forest green eyes glowing brighter with the flickering light. The sullen dip of a frown becomes visible on _Heda_ ’s forehead.

“Did you know that this would happen?” her tone is guarded now, touched by the slightest hint of annoyance. Clarke figures she is referring about her wolf attacking the Alphas in the woods a few hours back.

Anya simply regards the brunette and remains silent.

Lexa raises a hand, slender fingers sliding against the side of her neck. Clarke cannot see the bruises her own hands left on the soft skin of the woman’s throat, bruises she doesn’t remember leaving, but she sees the white flash of teeth as Lexa’s lips pull back in pain.

The blonde glances down briefly, staring at the hands that hold the fur tightly shut around her body. They look almost fragile in the blade of light that filters into the hut and incapable of squeezing anything so hard to leave a mark.

“ _Onya_ ,” Lexa’s voice is a growl of warning, jawline tensing with frustration while her hand keeps rubbing her bruises gingerly.

“I figured it might,” Anya concedes at last, with a shrug that looks like an apology, immediately belied by a rakish grin. Lexa stands abruptly and her growling becomes louder, a whirr of noise that makes the air tremble. It causes Clarke to pull back from the door and let the shadows inside shelter her. When it’s clear Lexa isn’t moving towards her, she edges forward again.

“You could have warned me,” the Commander grumbles after a while, frustration evident in the way she begins to pace back and forth, kicking away the occasional rock.

“Wisdom is oft acquired through the pain of healing.” Anya mocks with a chuckle, then straightens and adds more seriously, “would you have listened? Even when you were my _seken_ you needed to put your hand into the fire to acknowledge it was hot, “ she stands and her voice softens as she walks to Lexa and grabs her by her shoulders, halting her mid-stride, “even if I told you Costia would want this for us and the Pack, it would have slid off your shoulders like rain. It’s not me you need to hear it from Lexa, but your own heart.”

The Commander stays silent, head bowed, bottom lip worried between her teeth.

“Do you think you will love her?”

Clarke’s breath catches at the back of her throat as the question leaves Anya’s lips and she puts a hand on the doorframe to steady herself. Can _she_ come to love these two women, who are still so foreign to her? She knows what the wolf wants, but what does Clarke want? To be completely honest she isn’t sure, but when she looks at Anya and Lexa she feels _something_ that goes beyond her newly born instincts.

Lexa’s voice brings her back to the moment.

“I am fond of her,” the words are quiet and her voice cracks, “in time…” _Heda_ pauses then nods vigorously, “I can love her in time. I...I...” She trails off and Clarke doesn’t know what else she’d say because her feet carry her forward before she is really aware of moving.

She steps outside, letting the pelt drop from her shoulders.

The Alphas turn in unison, Anya’s mouth frozen into forming her own reply to the Commander.

“I care for you too,” the words leave Clarke in a rush, along with her breath and she knows them to be true. Her voice picks up strength as she moves towards them. She stops right between them and her gaze meets theirs. “I’ll understand....” she locks stares with Lexa, and what she says next is more for the brunette than Anya, “...if in the end you won’t love me,” it feels like an invisible fist is squeezing her heart as she makes the admission, the things she is starting to feel, turning sharp like broken glass. “I know I am not Costia,” she clenches her jaw, “I don’t want to take the memory of her away from the Pack, I don’t pretend that you forget her,“ she swallows thickly and then brings out what’s been bothering her all along, “but if you want me just as a replacement, go and look somewhere else.”

It hurts so fucking much to say it, despite having just heard the promise of a future in Lexa’s voice, but Clarke has to and she feels a great weight lift from her chest. The two women are completely stilled, and her little speech seems to hang between them. Green and almond colored eyes hold her in their regard and she is unable to move, or to speak further. She grinds her teeth, refusing to back down and retract the statement and the wolf, that would usually urge her to submit beneath their stares, is utterly silent. It’s the most human, the closest to her usual self, she’s felt in days.

Anya breaks the stalemate, striding forward and roughly bumping her shoulder with Clarke’s uninjured one. She can’t even begin to imagine what it took for Clarke to speak up the way she has, and as the girl’s eyes meet hers in a quiet challenge, stubborness hardens her sky blue stare. Anya is reminded of her willful _seken_ , the same woman standing sullenly a few feet away and groans inwardly. These two are more alike than they know and surely will give her grey hair before winter comes. And winter, she thinks wryly, is very close.

“Look at you both, talking sensibly for a change,” she lets out an amused guffaw, the hard planes of her face softening in the light of the fire and her arm goes around Clarke automatically when she notices the girl is shivering. She guides her closer to the fire, hearing Lexa drag her feet behind them.

“I thought I’d have to smack your heads together,” she continues, earning a glare from the Commander and a frown from the blonde. She sits on the wooden log, pulling Clarke down next to her and leans in, as the blonde settles against her for warmth.

“I like you in my clothes, Clarke.” Anya drags the _k_ on purpose with a coy smile and enjoys the way Clarke’s cheeks redden, and how she tucks her head down, letting hair the color of wheat descend like a curtain between them. Bright blue eyes peek at her in between the golden tresses and Anya’s smile turns knowing. Clarke isn’t as shy as she pretends.

The older woman allows the mirthful hazel of her eyes to soften into a different emotion. When the warrior is sure the Omega’s attention is entirely centered on her, her lips move and silently form words the blonde would not understand if they were spoken, but Anya hopes that her gaze alone conveys the meaning. She is rewarded with a wavering smile and a hint of wetness in Clarke’s eyes, then the blonde leans forward and their foreheads touch briefly.

Lexa plops down on the other side of the log, so that the Omega is sandwiched between them and huffs, with a pointed look in Anya’s direction.

“You’re insufferable!” she barks, completely oblivious to her mates’ unspoken exchange. Her tone hangs somewhere between outraged and disgruntled.

As Anya had hoped, the tension eases as Clarke laughs softly at the outburst and after a moment Lexa is joining in, with a rueful, self-conscious smile.

“I don’t want you to think I’d love you out of convenience Clarke,” the Commander murmurs as the chuckles ebb away. The night stills again around them as Clarke shifts her focus solely on the brunette and waits her to continue. Anya feels the Omega instinctively draw back a fraction, pressing against her side and she realizes that the blonde is afraid of what Heda will say next as little, almost inexistent tremors shake her.    

Lexa draws a shaky breath and closes her eyes briefly, as if ordering her thoughts, before she continues, “if… when ...I mean…” She stops and looks down abashed, then instead of talking she settles for taking Clarke’s hand in her own.

Anya gives an approving rumble as their fingers entwine and nudges the Omega closer to Lexa. Clarke complies and they crowd against each other on the log, letting the sounds of the night come alive around them. A desolate owl calls out in the distance and the wind shakes the trees at the edges of the small village. Every now and then they hear the crunching footsteps of the guards making the rounds, and sometimes a silhouette appears at the edge of the pool of light cast by the fire, but nobody approaches them.

Clarke is grateful for the silence and the company of the women sitting next to her. The combined heat of their bodies makes the air lose most of its bite and she slumps slightly against Anya, suddenly drained by everything that transpired between them. She tightens her hold on Lexa’s hand, glancing down at their entwined fingers and smiles softly. The Commander is running her thumb rhythmically along Clarke’s knuckles and she finds the gesture tender and soothing. She instinctively knows what Lexa was trying to say and failed. It was reassurance, a promise that if love was to happen it would be genuine, and having gazed into forest green eyes brimming with unspoken hope, Clarke believes it. Another though, one she is almost too scared to allow herself to think is that perhaps Lexa was about to say she already loves her a little.

The sky above tugs her gaze upwards as her heart gives a savage leap, and she gets lost in a myriad of stars. The night is moonless and the sky seems to hang low, like a piece of soft velvet tightly pulled from horizon to horizon. The stars are scattered on its surface, diamond dust thrown haphazardly across the black by the hands of a capricious God. Pressure builds behind her eyes and her bones crack with it. The quiet turns menacing and oppressing, as if she is sensing something is about to happen. Clarke squirms, unable to bear the silence any longer, the scratching that woke her gnawing at the corners of her thoughts again.

“I don’t miss being among the stars,”  the Alphas glance at her curiously and she continues, eyes tangling with Anya’s, “you asked me how the stars look from behind.”

Anya smiles, tilting her head with interest, “I have.”  

Clarke glances at Lexa and sees her eyes are also shining with curiosity. She feels encouraged and conscious it is the first time she really tells them anything about herself. Yet if she want their bond to be something other than just instinct, she needs to open up to them completely

“The Ark is...” she scratches her head with her free hand and thinks how to best describe it, “imagine a big metal box hanging up there,” she points at the stars, “and people living in it. Everything they eat, everything they use and wear has to be made on the Ark. Waste isn’t tolerated or allowed. It’s punished,” she remembers her father and all the others that were floated for breaking their strict laws, “with death.”

Lexa listens enthralled, knowing that the wonder on Anya’s face is mirrored by her own, and when Clarke falters at the mention of the Ark’s harsh laws, she sees the blonde’s vivid eyes darken with the ghost of an old grief. The thought Clarke may have been directly affected pains her, and anger twists sharply in her gut.

“My father was executed,” Clarke seems to read her expression and Lexa pulls her mate into her, fiercely protective. She feels the blonde pat her arm gently, as if Clarke is comforting _her_ , and her hold tightens further.

Clarke’s face is turned against her, pressed into the crook of her neck and her breath tickles Lexa’s skin. The Alpha’s anger mounts and turns to blind fury while her hands start to shake against the Omega’s back. Jade hued eyes flick upwards, narrow into slits and she growls impotently at the heavens, the people that hurt Clarke, _her_ Clarke too far away for her to reach.

Suddenly a soft purr fills her ears, deafening her to any other sound. The clean scent of freshly fallen snow curls inside her lungs and fills the nooks and crannies between her bones. Lexa blinks in surprise as her hold slackens, her anger melting away, heart slowing and she nuzzles into Clarke’s hair, mouth dropping open slightly when she inhales a heady whiff of the Omega’s musk.

She is barely aware of Clarke disentangling slowly, but her wolf lets loose a whimper as cold air fills the growing space between them. Then the Omega’s hands rise to cradle her face and she is jerked out of her daze. Clarke’s thumbs stroke along her cheekbones soothingly and when their eyes meet her pupils are blown out, the blue of her irises pushed into a narrow rim.

“I’m alright Clarke,” Lexa coos softly, covering her mate’s hands with her own and pulling them away to hold them still on her lap. The blonde shakes herself out, as if doused with a bucket of cold water and at the same time Anya lets out a gasp behind her.

Clarke half turns, and her eyes dart from an Alpha to the other as they slowly go back to normal.

“What…what did I just _do_?” The Omega shakes her head wonderingly, and Lexa is tempted to pull her into her arms again, hearing the tremor that lines her question. Clarke naturally used the calming influence an Omega has on the members of the Pack they belong to, but Lexa knows, as tight lines of tension appear around blue eyes, that she did so without really knowing how.

Before she can explain and reassure her mate, a rustling comes from the shadows.

Anya stands hurriedly, putting herself between the darkness and the still reeling Omega, feet wide apart and fists clutched at her sides. A low, threatening growl splits from her chest and the rustling ceases.

“Forgive me _Heda_ ,” Indra’s usually stoic voice is ripe with barely repressed tension, “a messenger has come for you.”

Lexa’s eyebrows rise before she catches herself, and she stands carefully, giving one last reassuring squeeze to Clarke’s hands.

She goes to stand next to Anya, their bodies forming a barrier between the two figures stepping into the light and the Omega.

Indra takes one look at the Alpha’s hard, unyielding faces and halts, placing a hand on the messenger’s arm to restrain him.

“Approach,” Lexa orders cooly.

The Betas shuffle forward and the messenger falls to his knees, an expression of reverent adoration fixed on his features. Grime cakes his face and rivulets of sweat draw pale lines along his brow. His chest heaves as he gulps air in avidly, and foam has dried at the corners of his mouth.

“ _Heda…_ ” he manages finally, voice strained by effort and fatigue, “forgive me. My horse…died on the road. I,” he rolls his shoulders apologetically, “I came from Polis as fast as I could.”

“Polis?” Anya takes a step forward and Lexa allows her to lead, watching the scout’s eyes carefully, “has something happened?”

He nods weakly, almost falling on his face with the motion. When he replies, his words are filled with fear of the Commander’s wrath.

“The Ambassadors have convened. They call for the Hunt at the winter solstice with a unanimous vote.”

* * *

 

The flail whistles, landing across the Wulfen’s chest with a meaty _thud_. Arms, thick with corded muscles flex in response. The thing swings back with the force of the blow, and the chains that hold it still for punishment creak under the strain.

“I wanted him alive!” Cage yells, leaning closer to its distorted snout, before swinging  
his arm back for another blow.

As the barbed chain strikes flesh again, blood spatters across the front of his shirt. A few drops patter on his cheek and sneak down to his lip. Cage’s tongue darts out reflexively and as the rich saltiness spreads into his mouth, he lets out a growl.

Stepping back, he lets the flail drop and lowers his head, shaking with hunger. He spares a disgusted glare at the thing and the darkness inside him pours forward, urging to tear into the quivering flesh and gorge himself on it.

_No!_

He clenches his free hand into a tight fist, feeling his nails cut bloody gouges into his palm. The pain calms him down as always. He inhales deeply and grunts in disgust at the stench. Cage knows how the hated savages call those that succumb to the taint. _Twisted Ones_. The moniker brings a thunderous frown and his anger rekindles. It’s a name that reeks of contempt and pity as if the brutes considered themselves above his people. People under the Mountain choose not to see. In the beginning it was even proposed that the Wulfen be killed or turned away, but Cage had opposed the notion strenuously. They had been kin. They could still be useful.

He throws the cat o’ nine into a corner with a strangled shout, and whirls to face the Wulfen again. The fault lies with the Outsiders, he repeats himself as he has done many other times. _They_ are the impure ones.

He takes a step forward and his fist thuds into the creature’s abdomen.

“You stupid fuck!”

A rib cracks under the force of the blow, bruising his knuckles. His other fist digs into the Wulfen’s sternum and he twists viciously, leaving the creature wheezing for breath.

Rage descends like a red veil in front of him and he kicks out and punches, a cascade of obscenities falling from his mouth until he is winded. The Wulfen keens pitifully as Cage steps back, wiping an aching hand across his brow. The beast’s orange irises are reduced to a thin ring around pupils blown out of normal proportions by agony. Its chest is caked with streaks of blood and a nasty bruise is forming where Cage’s blows broke bone.

He is not worried by the monster’s condition - he has done enough to hurt, but he knows how the wolf blood speeds recovery. Cage snatches a towel from a nearby rack and wipes his face, grimacing when the cloth comes away red.

He closes his eyes for a moment, focusing his breathing, letting the anger drip away with his sweat. Being near a Wulfen for so long always makes him angry, the botched plan just adding fuel to the fire. The _Wulfen_ ’s existence is a shame for the Mountain, despite even the most vocal detractors having recognized their usefulness. Cage could hand his charges over to someone else, yet he forces himself to train them, makes sure they are fed. The Wulfen are a constant reminder of his failures and they drive him harder in his efforts to secure a future above ground.

A muffled voice calls his name from behind the closed door.

“Mr. Wallace, Sir?”

He recognizes Emerson’s brisk tones and wipes as much blood off his face and hands as he can, before tossing the soiled rag and pulling the door open enough to meet the man’s eyes. The soldier takes one look at his reddened shirt and goes rigid, stare firmly directed to the empty wall behind Cage’s back.

“Your father wishes to see you, sir,”

It’s earlier than Cage had anticipated. He had hoped he would have more time to prepare, some results to show for his boldness. Instead he has nothing and the rage seethes, boils inside him as he answers through teeth gritted so tightly his jaws hurt.

“Tell my father I will be with him shortly.”

“Yes sir.” The man retreats, sagely not commenting on the state of his clothes. A smart man Emerson, one to keep close in the days to come.

Cage sighs, body leaden all of a sudden. The rage leaves him wrung out, muscles twitching as if he had run for miles.

“Pleeeeaseee,” the Wulfen’s mouth is so full of fangs, its vocal chords so thickened by the change, the words are almost unintelligible, “releeeease meee.”

Cage freezes, hand on the doorknob. Slowly he turns, narrowed eyes inevitably drawn to the creature’s face. Does it still bear some resemblance to Anderson, he wonders? They used to be friends when they were younger, play together.

He shakes his head, dispelling the memory and his mouth curves upwards in a cruel smile.

“No,” the beast’s keening becomes frantic, “you still serve a purpose.”

* * *

 

The strangely colored sky above her resolves into pieces of fabric hastily stitched together. Raven brings a hand to her throbbing head, fingers finding a raised spot that makes her eyes tear up when her touch  brushes against it.

“Ow. Fuck.” She snatches her hand away and struggles up on her elbows and then to a sitting position. Moving her arms and legs experimentally, and finding that nothing else hurts, Raven kicks the blanket covering her again, and swings her legs off the side of the makeshift cot she’s been laying on.

She grunts as she stands and stretches, pulling her arms taut above her head. Her joints pop and she can tell she’ll sport more than a few bruises. Still she can consider herself lucky; she doesn’t remember much of the drop, but it could have ended with her splattered on the ground, instead of being well enough to complain about her injuries.

Outside the small tent voices are raised for an instant, followed by a strangled yelp, then lower to snarled overlapping grumbling as if whoever is talking is trying to keep quiet. When Raven hears the name _Finn_ the last traces of stupor evaporate, her heart hammering so hard against her ribs she thinks they may crack under the strain.

She quickly scans the ground for her boots and tugs them on, cursing and hopping from one foot to the other in her haste. The moving around makes her slightly nauseous and she hopes it’s nothing more than a minor concussion.

When she ducks outside, the small group of people huddled together and obviously quarreling a few meters away fails to hold her attention. Raven forgets about Finn for a moment, breath stolen away by what surrounds her. Everywhere she looks is lush, verdant life and the sun, despite being close to disappearing behind the treetops still shines with enough force to almost blind her.

“Oh my God,” a wave of dizziness washes over her and she reflexively throws an arm out to hold on to something, anything that may steady her. There’s nothing around her and she totters to the side, almost falling to her knees as the openness of the clearing overwhelms her.

Strong fingers grab her wrist and she blindly grasps for her saviour’s shoulder, bumping awkwardly into his chest.

“Easy there,” she looks up, the firm kindness of his voice calming the frantic drumming in her ears.

She pulls back slowly, with a grateful nod and when the boy is sure she won’t falter again, he lets go. Raven inclines her head and frowns. She knows him, Wells Jaha even if she’s seen him only a bunch of times in the Ark’s communal spaces. His father would never allow him to set foot on Mecha Station after all. The elite didn’t mix with the masses, she thinks with a wry grin.

“You ok?” His brown eyes are soft and concerned and she pats his arm reassuringly.

“Yeah, it’s just...” she jerks her arm in a wide arc, pointing at the forest around them. She doesn’t really know how to explain.

“I get it.” As he follows her gaze to the closest thicket his eyes narrow with wariness and something dark lurks in their depths, “it can take a while to adjust after a life spent in a shoebox.”

She snorts in agreement, as the others that had been heatedly discussing when she emerged from the tent surround her. She notices one of them, older than the rest is sporting a fresh bruise on his cheek and that his lip is cut and swollen. A girl glares at him sullenly, nursing bloodied knuckles and the glances he directs her are remorseful and pained. They exchange greetings and names, asking how she feels.

Raven knows a few of them through Finn’s stories, but she’s never talked to any of them directly - imprisonment making that a somewhat difficult task. After they’ve made sure she is well, they swiftly go back to arguing. She wants to ask them about the radio she brought with her, which wasn’t in the tent when she woke up and about Clarke, but they all look so ready to snap, it’s probably best to let their fight simmer down before she gets down to business.

Raven hopes they won’t take too long. Time is running out.

Abby had described her daughter to her, so she busies herself with scanning the camp for any sign of the blonde or Finn. She gives up after a few minutes, kind of disappointed. She’d figured her boyfriend would be among the first ones to greet her.

“If what you say is true then we need more of these,” Bellamy hefts the semi-automatic rifle he is carrying as if to underline his words. Some of the others in the tight circle nod in agreement and as Raven glances around the small camp, she notices several of them are carrying similar weapons. It isn’t many though, most of the group armed with crudely hand-made knives, bows and spears with points charred and hardened above a fire.

“If?” Wells challenges outraged, “you don’t know what we’re up against Bellamy!” He tries and fails to keep his voice to a low hiss, and when he raises it at the end he earns a few curious looks by the sentinels prowling the camp in pairs, and a stern frown from the other boy. Raven can tell the others look up to Bellamy. He’s older and there’s a self-assured air about him that inspires confidence. She hopes he’s got the brains to match the looks.

Bellamy lets the gun drop from the strap securing it around his chest and raises both hands in a placating manner. “Look Wells I am not saying you weren’t chased, or that someone didn’t take Finn, but whatever... _thing_ you described. That just sounds crazy is all. In the middle of a fight, in the darkness...perhaps your mind tricked you.”

Raven stops listening as soon as the words _take_ and _Finn_ appear next to each other. She shoulders her way between the two glowering youngsters and their eyes shift to her.

“What do you mean, Finn’s been taken?” She tries to keep her tone under control, but a slight tremor enters her voice. He can’t be gone, he can’t. She came down because it was the only way for Abby to know that Earth was safe, but mostly so that she could be with Finn again.

Bellamy and Wells open their mouth at the same time, but before either can speak, Bellamy’s sister comes forward and places a gentle hand on her shoulder. Octavia regards her somberly and her fingers press harder into Raven’s flesh. The mechanic can’t tell if Octavia is trying to steady her or seeking support. “He… we were running away from whatever was chasing us,” she shoots a warning glance at the boys, daring them to interrupt her, “and he was grabbed, pulled back down the tunnel. He yelled at us to run.”

“You abandoned him?” Raven realizes she’s being unfair as soon as the words are out of her mouth. There’s genuine fear and hurt in Octavia’s light green eyes. The brunette turns away briefly to stare angrily at Bellamy. “There was nothing we could do. You want to know about abandoning your friends ask my brother. He’s an expert.” Bellamy recoils as if she dealt him another physical blow.  

The ground seems to open beneath her for an instant and her hands close around Octavia’s forearm. Raven lowers her head, puffing out the last of the oxygen in her lungs in a quiet sob. Grief constricts her throat and she tries to swallow it down. Her hands shake, but incredibly her eyes stay dry. She senses Octavia shifting closer and the brunette leans in to whisper at her ear.

“Do you…?”

Raven shakes her head, not letting her finish. If the girl offers her comfort now, she will break down and they can’t afford it. Not when whoever took Finn is still out there. She straightens her back, using the unknown danger to push her sorrow away for the time being.

“When you found me, did you also recover a radio?” Stunned silence meets her question, then Bellamy clears his throat. “I was the one who brought you in,” he shrugs, “I didn’t find anything besides the pack that’s in the tent.”

The first hint of panic makes her back run with a cold sweat.

“We need that radio, the Ark needs to know Earth is survivable since it looks like you all incidentally lost your bracelets.” She pointedly looks down at their wrists, “otherwise they’ll start culling the population.”

Her revelation is met with quiet gasps.

“Genius here forced people to remove them.” Octavia elbows her brother in the ribs and he grunts.

“I didn’t find any radio,” he repeats, choosing to ignore his sister’s jab, “but your pod was cracked open by the impact. Could it have come loose and tumbled outside? It was dark when I got to you.”

Raven rolls her shoulders doubtfully, “I guess, but it was well fastened. Anyway, we need to go look for it.” She lets go of Octavia’s arm and half turns as if to do just that. She needs something to do, something to keep her busy so she won’t have to think about Finn. Not that she has any idea where her landing site exactly is.   

“Wait.” Wells quiet voice stops her in her tracks, “where do you think you’re going? It’s getting dark and you aren’t armed.”

“Nobody is going anywhere tonight,” Bellamy growls to re-establish a semblance of order, “the most sensible thing to do is go get more guns first anyway.”

Wells rounds on him. “Are you deaf? I told you I’m not going back there.”

“Wells..”

“No, you hear me? We’re not going back there.” The Chancellor’s son takes a step forward, looking ready to drive his point home with his fists. Raven scans his face carefully. The same shadow she glimpsed in his eyes when he was looking towards the forest skates across his features. Whatever happened to them has him rattled.

Another boy, Murphy, saunters forward with a mocking laugh. A sneer is plastered to his thin lips and there’s a cruel spark in his eyes that Raven immediately dislikes.

“You spook easily, Jaha. Guess you’re not very brave when your daddy’s guards aren’t around uh?” When Wells protests angrily his smirk widens, “spacewalker probably just tripped and broke his neck. You guys made the monsters up to spare him the embarrassment.” Raven is about to put the snarky asshole in his place when Wells lunges forward, surprising everybody, and his fist crunches into Murphy’s nose, breaking it with a loud snap.

The insult Murphy tries to hurt him with doesn’t faze him. Wells has gotten used to being despised for being the Chancellor’s son. It’s the way the other boy so causally disrespects Finn’s death that makes his mind go red with rage.

His fist is a blur that Murphy can’t hope to dodge and the crunch of bone as his knuckles break the boy’s nose is followed by a spurt of blood. Murphy falls flat on his back with a strangled cry, that becomes a pained wheeze as he tries to suck in air through shattered bones. Wells feels the entire camp’s eyes on him as he bends down and grabs the writhing youth by the front of his jacket, pulling him up roughly. He leans close, forehead almost touching Murphy’s and his face grows frighteningly cold. “Say that again, you little shit and you’ll get worse.” He keeps his voice to a lowly whisper, meant only for the injured boy’s ears.

Murphy nods weakly and Wells lets him go, but there’s a flash of undiluted hatred in John’s eyes and he knows their fight isn’t over.

“I am not going back there.” He states evenly.

“Fine!” Bellamy gives an exasperated sigh, “you can just explain to me where it is and I will take some volunteers tomorrow. Raven’s landing site is near the river, you and Octavia can lead another group there in the morning to look for her radio.” The others, including Raven, nod their agreement and Wells reluctantly consents. He knows he can push Bellamy only so far.

“What do we do in the meantime? We’re kind of sitting ducks here.” Miller pulls Murphy’s arm around his shoulders and helps him onto unsteady legs. Blood is running freely down his chin and soaks the front of his shirt bright red.

“Listen up everybody!” Bellamy shouts to get the camp’s attention, “the woods aren’t safe so nobody leave the dropship without my permission!” A low murmur starts and he tilts his head towards Miller, “I want as many torches as we can on the palisade tonight and double shifts until the last portions of it are completed. Got it?”

“Understood.” Miller turns, dragging a stumbling Murphy along so he can get looked at. Now that Clarke is gone they don’t really have a healer, but a few of the others have a basic knowledge of first aid.

“Wells, come help me organize the work teams.” Bellamy is wording it as an order, but the veiled request for assistance slightly surprises him. He has no illusion that the Blake boy is willing to share leadership with him, since he resisted doing that with Clarke as well, but perhaps he is feeling the weight of their losses as keenly as Wells. Whatever the reason, he’s willing to work with Wells and that’s enough for the time being.   

Bellamy walks away, not waiting for a reply and Wells trots after him with a weary sigh. He throws one last look over his shoulder and watches Octavia circle Raven’s shoulders, talking quietly in the older girl’s ear.

Suddenly his eyes burn, his vision becoming unfocused and blurred for a moment. It seems they’ve done nothing but mourn since coming to the ground.

* * *

 

The double glass doors slide open with a quiet hiss and Cage steels himself, before stepping into his father’s office. The air has a stale, dusty quality he associates with the vaults underneath their feet, where they keep art from a forgotten age. His people sit on heaps of rotting relics like a jealous dragon defending a pile of gold. He cannot help but feel his father belongs among them too. Dante Wallace is more fit to a mausoleum than a chair of office.

His eyes regard a room that has not changed since the nuclear holocaust. It used to scare him when he was little, with its imposing mahogany desk and the faded United States flag proudly hung on the wall behind it. His father had added a glass cabinet full of rocks and plant specimens collected by the surface teams and a wealth of art supplies.

The man himself is currently facing his beloved easel, painting a landscape he has never laid eyes on. Someone that didn’t know him well would say he is so engrossed in his craft he has not heard his son’s footsteps. Cage knows better.

He waits, hands clasped tightly behind his back until the silence becomes unbearable. He hates this way his father always  has of making him act first. At the same time he admires the quality – to make an adversary, even a verbal one display his hand before striking home. Cage wonders when exactly his father has become an enemy.

“You asked for me father?”

The only reply is the soft swish of a brush on canvas. Cage opens his mouth again, but his father speaks first.

“I did.”

Dante scoops up a rag from the nearest table and wipes a residue of paint on it, before setting the brush down carefully. He turns, and stands to the side so that Cage can see the painting unhindered. Dante nods his head towards his work.

“What do you think?”

His son steps forward and as his eyes are trained on the canvas, the President watches him carefully. He can see the subtle changes brought on by the blood. There is a reddish spark at the bottom of his son’s eyes when they catch the artificial light directly, and a gait to his steps very similar to that of a stalking beast. Cage conceals it well, but Dante can see the shadow of the Wulfen lurk beneath the human façade.

Cage leans forward, examining his father’s work. The oil-paint’s smell is pungent in his nose, but he revels in it, basking in the newfound sharpness of his senses. The colors are vibrant, each stroke of the brush masterfully placed. It is the Mountain itself, its slopes swathed in the swirling curtains of a soft rain. The colors are delicate, a myriad hues of green. He finds there is something haunting and deeply fatalistic about the whole. It’s a beautiful view, but forever out of reach – if they keep on the course set by his father.

“It is… troubling.”

“Troubling?” Dante raises a questioning eyebrow.

“”Yes,” Cage raises his eyes and meets his father’s steely gaze, “you paint the outside… _obsessively_ , yet you have not been on the surface in what, fifteen years?” He fails to keep contempt out of his voice. His father refuses treatment when not absolutely necessary, settling for imagined depictions of the outside instead of the real thing. He is corpse-pale, shoulders slightly stooped forward and aged beyond his years.

“Weakness is a matter of perspective Cage,” Dante smiles faintly, seeing the way his son’s eyes linger on his aged frame and the cane he clutches to move towards the desk, “anything you cannot sacrifice chains you, makes you weak.”

He gestures to the pictures of the drop site scattered across his table. His thumb strokes one particular shot almost fondly. The kids, stepping out of their pod for the first time, a look of wonder forever frozen on their faces.

“Your haste to get to the surface is your weakness son.”  

“I only want what is best for our people! We don’t belong underground father,” Cage jabs a finger angrily at the office and the halls beyond, “our place is above!”

Dante’s sigh is weary patience and regret.

“We will get there in time,” he places a hand on Cage’s shoulder, then suddenly squeezes hard, fingers digging into his son’s flesh. “You think I don’t know what you did?” He sets aside the cane and his hand sweeps across the desk, scattering the photos to the ground, “I told you the newcomers weren’t to be touched!” He hates the way his raised voice echoes around the confined space, but cannot help it. Cage always pushes him towards the edge.

Cage opens his mouth for a retort, eyes flashing, and his father’s hold becomes impossibly tight. A grunt leaves Cage’s lips as pain starts to spread down his arm.

“Yet one of them lays dead under Dr. Tsing’s scalpel and for what?” Dante had gone down into her lair to see the body. It was mauled beyond repair, face strangely intact. His eyes had been frozen open, terror apparent even through the glaze of death. Tsing had shown him where the neck had been snapped, but he had taken no consolation from the quickness of the boy’s death. He had allowed her to do as she wanted with the remains because he was a practical man, not a religious one. He would remember the boy during his dinner address though. He deserved that much.

“Freedom!” Cage finally snarls back, jerking backwards, “their blood holds our freedom father! Don’t you want to walk under the sun? Draw on your canvas things you have actually seen with your own eyes? Touched with your hands?”

A fleeting look of longing creases Dante’s features, chasing the anger away.

“More than anything,” he admits, then his voice hardens to sharp iron again,”but I will not spill innocent blood for it. It would taint our intent.”

“Taint? The damn wolves taint our intent!”

Cage moves around the room, making vigorous use of the space available. He chews the inside of his cheek, keeping the fury that seems to accompany him everywhere under control. With effort.

“So you would just... _wait_? Sit and do nothing?” His laugh is bitter, “you are certainly good at that father.”

Dante busies himself with collecting the pictures and sets them back on the table in a neat pile. When their eyes meet his gaze pulls Cage to an abrupt stop.

“Look at them son,” he shuffles the pictures out like cards, as if he were playing solitaire, “these people are like us. They have familiar technology, we dress somewhat similar...most importantly they are _young_ ,” he leans forward, palming the tabletop. “We could have approached them as winter came, offering sanctuary,” he opens his arms theatrically, donning the mask of the good-willed leader. “It’s safe here!”

Dante taps the pictures emphatically. “They would have stayed _of their own will_! The Wulfen could have been used as leverage!” Come!” His hands beckon imaginary strangers, “come live with us, we will protect you from the monsters!”

The President’s eyes flash with barely repressed anger and his arms drop.

“We would have assimilated them into the gene-pool and our mutual offsprings would have been radiation resistant. With gene therapy we could have increased the chance.” He shakes his head, “now it will be much harder to gain their trust.”

Cage mirrors his father’s stance, and their gazes tangle as they stare each other down. The air grows heavy with tension.

“They do not need to trust us father,” he picks up one of the photos. It shows the kids laboring around a half built barricade. It’s a motley patchwork of wood and salvaged metal, but could pose a problem. “We could just bring them in. It would be best to act before they complete their wall.” Cage cannot keep a flicker of reluctant admiration from his mind. They have hours of surveillance  on them and he has sifted through it all. After an initial sense of displacement that had erupted into scuffles and chaos, they had actually banded together, the will to survive stronger than internal divisions.

“Then what?” Dante pinches the bridge of his nose. He feels the first hint of a headache build between his eyes. His neck is rigid with tension and he is leaning much more of his weight against the table than he shows to his son. The beast that lurks behind Cage’s eyes is waiting, crouched low like a wild cat in high grass. One wrong word, a flash of his exposed throat and it will strike. “Your plan is based on Dr. Tsing’s hypothesis,” he raises a hand to forestall more arguments, “she is a capable doctor Cage, but so far all of her theories have been just that.” He steps away from the desk and retrieves a bottle and two glasses from a nearby cabinet.

The smoky aroma of aged whiskey fills the space between them and Dante pushes a glass towards his son. He brings his own to his lips and takes a small sip, swirling the amber liquid around his mouth before gulping it down.

Dante walks back to the easel and stares at his own art for a time. When he speaks again every word is carefully measured.

“Let’s entertain the notion for a moment,” he doesn’t need to glance over his shoulder to gauge his son’s reaction. He can picture an hopeful look, satisfied even, as Cage thinks he has found an opening. “We take the kids in. Take the blood. Marrow perhaps?”

There’s the rustle of a well-pressed suit as Cage nods, “that may be necessary, yes. Regretful, but unavoidable.”

“Regretful.” Dante takes another sip of liquor, “now let me ask you, what if the effect isn’t permanent? What if there is not enough material to make a serum for everybody?”

“Tsing assures me…”

“Tsing assures you of many things son, most of which are speculation at this point.” His voice is dry with sarcasm.

Cage slams a fist on the table, then averts his gaze when his father shakes his head disapprovingly. He clenches his jaws so hard the tendons creak and inhales evenly, calming the rage that thrums inside his skull.

“You do not raise such strenuous objections on using the wolves’ blood.”

Dante’s mouth curls with distaste as is usual when he is reminded of what they have to do to survive.

“Those… creatures,” the pause carries the full weight of his contempt, “are beneath us. Savages.” He nods to the painting, raising a questioning eyebrow, “do you know what makes a great artist, Cage?”

“I am sure you will tell me father,” Cage drains his glass, and pours himself another generous dose without asking.

Dante sweeps his hand across his work in an encompassing motion, careful not to touch the drying paint. “Attention to detail, Cage,” he picks a brush and adds a few dollops of green to the tree line, “without losing sight of the whole picture.”

“Father…”

“I have heard enough,” Dante turns to face him, “we will not speak of this again. I have read Emerson’s report and I believe the situation is salvageable.” Dante walks to his chair and sits down, suppressing a tired sigh.

His son just stands looking down at the floor, but Dante knows it is not an act of contrition. Simply. Cage is thinking of a different approach.

He has something of his mother in the line of his nose, and his eyes are the same color. Yet he is callous where she was soft and Dante knows that as much as he tried to teach him, Cage seldom displays political cunning. He is rash, his decision-making never extending beyond the pressing needs. He does not plan ahead and the President will not let the matter go unresolved. His son can be salvaged too, or so he would like to believe. Dante knows he does not have many years left. As questionable as Tsing methods can be, she is a good doctor and has told him as much. His refusal to undergo more than the minimum quota of transfusions complicates matters. Perhaps a direct threat will succeed where the careful schooling of years has failed. Dante regards his errant son above steepled hands, and his eyes narrow dangerously. Cage is confident that the Presidency will be his when his father dies, but Dante would rather see the Mountain crumble before he leaves leadership in less than capable hands.

"Let me make myself clear son,” his voice is gravelly and hard, “cross me again and no matter our blood ties the next President won't be a Wallace,” he finds he cannot bear to look at his son and his own failure any longer, so he turns his face away before continuing, thinking of the loving wife that left him so many years before. His next words are bitter. “I wish I had another son to leave this legacy to. I should have known you were flawed when your mother died bringing you into this world."

Cage is looming above him suddenly, so close his legs almost touch Dante’s chair. The President looks up and pain blossoms inside his chest. His son’s eyes are distant, his face locked into an expression so devoid of emotion that Dante has the fleeting impression of looking at a corpse. Cage’s eyes glow like burning coals though, hot and cherry-red.

The older man opens his mouth to speak and, when nothing comes out he frowns irritably. The pain increases, burning a path down his spine. The muscles in his neck lose all strength and his head lolls forward, chin coming to rest on his chest.

A glint of metal prompts him to focus downward, and Dante gapes silently as blood bubbles up at the corners of his mouth. Cage is gripping the hilt of a palette-knife, the metal blade buried into Dante’s chest. Hands, gnarled and blotched with age scratch at the fingers holding the improvised weapon, leaving angry rents on the pale skin. Dante doesn’t remember moving them, but all of a sudden they feel heavier than stone. His vision blurs, burning black at the edges and the blood bubbling up his throat begins to choke him. The hand holding the knife pulls away and without its support his body slides forward, slowly folding onto itself. The last thing Dante sees is the desk’s surface getting closer.

His vision is completely gone by the time he vomits the last shreds of life onto the wood.

* * *

 

Anya and Indra hustle the man off to a nearby building, so that he can eat and clean himself before they interrogate him further. Lexa looks after them until they’re swallowed by the darkness then turns her attention back to Clarke.

The Omega is still sitting on the log, leaning forward, a deep frown furrowing her brow. Lexa can almost see the thoughts spinning behind those intelligent blue eyes and tries to smooth her features into calm despite the questions filling her own head.

“It’s bad isn’t it?” Clarke’s tone is surprisingly gravelly, almost husky. A hint of the wolf lurks behind her eyes, guarded and calculating, but the blonde doesn’t seem aware of it.

Lexa hesitates before replying. She doesn’t want to expose Clarke to political power plays just yet, not when it looks like they are finally moving forward, but she knows the message is trouble and that the blonde won’t appreciate being kept in the dark. The Omega is finally confiding in them and she needs to do the same.

“It could be,” she says noncommittally.

Clarke snorts in dark amusement and rolls her eyes.

“Your General and the messenger looked horrified, Lexa. Does it have to do with me?”

The Commander sighs wearily, her wolf snapping at the Omega’s insolence, while the woman is admittedly turned on by it.

She simply settles for a terse nod and Clarke stands, walking to her, blue eyes never wavering from hers. Lexa is taken aback by the harshness that settles over Clarke’s features. The glow of the fire lends her face a savage quality that reminds the Alpha of the wilderness of her lands in winter, beautiful and deadly at the same time. A quiet strength rolls off the smaller girl in waves, something Lexa had only glimpsed so far; first when Clarke demanded to know about Costia and then when she stood, battered but unflinching as the clan’s warriors honored her kill after the ambush.

“I should be present.”

“Clarke…” Lexa trails off, failing to keep concern from her voice. She is deeply touched by this resolute side of Clarke, her wolf now assessing the Omega with curiosity after the initial anger, but her attentive gaze hasn’t missed the slight swaying as the girl stood, or the haggard lines under her eyes. Clarke is tired and the wolf inside her growls protectively at the idea that the Omega is pushing herself past her limits to support the Commander.

Clarke watches the conflict of emotions play out in the green depths of the Alpha’s eyes and a flash of anger makes her quiver slightly. She isn’t made of glass and the bruising on Lexa’s throat should have proven that if nothing else. Clarke opens her mouth for an annoyed retort, then snaps it shut with a soft clicking of teeth.

If whatever is coming is as dangerous as the other wolves’ reactions imply, then the Alpha needs her wits about her. Clarke understands enough of politics and power balances to know that Lexa cannot afford to make mistakes, and that means she can’t be worrying for Clarke’s well being while she untangles the current mess.

Surprising them both, Clarke takes one last step forward and her lips unerringly find the Commander’s. The kiss is a ghosted touch at first, Lexa’s lips trembling against her own, but when the Alpha doesn’t pull back Clarke presses into her emboldened. She raises a hand to cradle the Commander’s jaw and firmly plants the other against her lower back. She feels Lexa’s body naturally shift into hers as her vision narrows down to a vastness of ocean green before a black veil descends across her eyes. She’s dimly aware of Lexa’s lips parting, of their tongues sliding against one another, then the Commander’s hand clamps down around the nape of her neck, fingers sifting through silken hair as Lexa wrestles control of the kiss away from her almost brutally.

It makes Clarke’s knees weaken, and if it wasn’t for Lexa’s other arm tightening around the dip of her waist she would crumble to the ground.

The kiss seems to last forever, and when Lexa pulls away gently, lips red and swollen, Clarke almost expects the sun to be rising above them. Instead, it is still the dead of night and nothing but mere minutes have passed them by.

“Come back to me soon,” the Omega rasps out, including Anya in her statement.

The brunette rests her forehead against her mate’s, panting slightly. She looks at Clarke with eyes darkened by lust.

“What you just did makes me not want to leave,” Clarke shudders under the stare. Gone is the tongue-tied girl stammering about her feelings, replaced by the self-assured, almost cocky Alpha. The change leaves her gasping for breath.

Lexa’s gaze clears and softens to a lighter shade of green. She raises both hands to cup Clarke’s face, and her thumbs trace the girl’s cheeks, feathering along the tiredness smudged under her eyes.

“Rest,” she whispers gently, “we’ll be back shortly.”

Clarke nods weakly, then a coy grin pulls at her mouth.

“At least I gave you an incentive to be quick about it.”

Lexa cannot hold back a chuckle as she gives an affectionate pat to Clarke’s cheek, before turning to follow in Anya’s footsteps. She feels the Omega’s gaze burn against her back until the night closes around her.

Clarke watches the Commander leave and brings shaking fingers to her lips. The bottom one aches dully where Lexa’s teeth nipped, but the throbbing sensation comforts her.

She lets the hand drop away.

“What did I just do?” These words are becoming a familiar mantra. She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep, calming breath or at least she tries to. Her heart is thumping too hard and her lungs feel constricted, and no matter how hard she tries she can’t fill them with enough air. She berates herself wryly, pushing more wood onto the dying fire and stretching her cold hands over the flames licking upwards. So much for taking it slow.

A part of her wants to blame the kiss on the wolf’s instincts, but she knows it hadn’t been the Alpha in Lexa that called to her, but what she’d seen in her eyes. There had been a moment where the Commander had been vulnerable, torn between the duty to the Pack and her desire to care for Clarke. It had been a genuine sentiment and Clarke had gotten another glimpse of the person Lexa was beneath her layers.

“I am falling for them, right?” She speaks her thoughts out loud, and loneliness shoots through her heart. Perhaps she should try and find Nyko. Talking to him always puts order into her mind.

She walks back and forth conflicted, much like Lexa had done when she was spying on her and Anya. She’s promised she would rest, but now that she’s alone with the night and the quiet she finds herself unable to do so.

The itch that’s been nagging her since she woke, becomes a stinging sensation between her shoulder blades and she growls irritably, tossing her head. She reaches inside the borrowed shirt to scratch the sensation away and, as her fingers brush her healing shoulder, her flesh starts to burn with an invisible fire.

“Ah!” Clarke pulls her hand back, staring at it suspiciously, “what the hell?”

Ignoring the cold she pulls the collar of the shirt down to expose her wounded shoulder and examines it, fingers prodding the tender flesh experimentally in the palpitating light of the fire. The Alphas haven’t redressed it after her bath, but even if the flames’ glow doesn’t offer much in the way of light, Clarke can feel the skin under her touch is unbroken, raised and coarse. She knows the place where the brand burned her to seal the gash will still be reddened, but it’s definitely healing even if the deeper tissues remain damaged and her movements limited.

Still, it should not hurt like this.

There’s something going on and as she takes a lungful of the frigid air it seems to smell like expectation. Clarke casts one last look to the Alphas’ cabin then, throwing caution to the wind, walks away from the fire.   

She doesn’t exactly know where she is going, but the burning seems to have transferred from her skin to her ears. It has taken the shape of a buzzing sound, as if a swarm of wasps had settled inside her skull. Clarke can feel the rest of the Pack around her, a soft murmur that entwines with the louder noise and is swallowed by it. She isn’t really aware of her surroundings, passing a few torch-bearing guards without really seeing them. They must know who she is, even if not all of them are part of the Commander’s retinue, because none of them asks after her whereabouts.

She moves more confidently in the dark than she ever has, eyes picking out the rocks and obstacles on the ground even in the non-light. Despite the newfound keenness of her sight, Clarke gasps softly and staggers back when a shadow looms out of the night.

The man smells indifferent to her and unfamiliar. He is a Beta, but one she has never encountered before. Sharp, white teeth cut the night apart with a vicious grin and he steps inside her space.

“Let me through.” Clarke is surprised at the steadiness of her voice.

A snorted laugh is all the warning she gets, before a calloused hand shoves her violently backwards. “You don’t belong here half-blood.” The words are thick and guttural.

“I am the Commander’s and Anya’s.” Her head lifts proudly as the challenging words leave her lips. Clarke isn’t sure how she is going to back her defiance up, since the silhouette blocking her path is three times her size. He could eaily snap her in half like a twig.

Brilliant.

He shoves her again, and it takes her everything she has to remain standing.

“Try me _breeder_.”

She sees his hand move again, a dark blur at the corner of her eye and before she has time to think, her own hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist.

Their muscles lock and a terrible rage descends over Clarke. For a moment she is afraid of losing control again, but this anger is cold and terribly calculated. She watches on almost detached as her fingers begin to dig into the man’s hard flesh. The tendons of his wrist writhe like snakes against the palm of her hand, but he doesn’t manage to rip himself free and a grunt of surprise breaks away from him. Bones begin to scrape against each other, cracking under the strain, and Clarke frowns, the effort beading her brow with freezing sweat.

A torch illuminates the scene and a familiar hand weighs down on Clarke’s shoulder.

“What’s going on here?” Gustus grates omniously.

Her fingers slacken immediately, and the Beta pulls away with a hiss, clamping his other had around the injured wrist.

“A difference of opinions.” Clarke directs a thin, mocking smile to the man and when he springs forward with a roar, swallowing her bait, Gustus puts himself between them, thrusting his chin forward.

“Back. Off. Quint.”

“But…”

Lexa’s lieutenant growls so loudly Clarke’s bones vibrate with the sound, but his next words are quiet, soft as a blade scraping against the whetstone.

“If I catch you around her again, there will be consequences.”

The Beta backs away, glaring daggers at Clarke and when his footsteps have completely faded, Gustus turns to her.

“Are you hurt?”

She smiles reassuringly upon hearing the apprehension in his voice and resists the urge to rub where Quint’s hand struck her.

“Only my pride.”

He grunts. “He got worse.” Gustus’ eyes narrow suspiciously, “you should be in the Alphas’ hut. Lexa ordered me to send guards to watch over you.”

“I can’t sleep,” Clarke says hurriedly, wrapping her arms around herself, “something’s going on in the Pack.” She sniff the air again and the bitter tang of blood that fills her nostrils is like a slap in the face. She gags, bending forward then straightens, shoulder awash in agony again.

“Clarke?” Gustus’ concerned hands grab her shoulders and he shakes her gently, “what’s wrong?”

She blinks at him stupidly. “You don’t smell it? The blood? Someone’s in pain.” She understands that the agony screaming through her bones isn’t her own, but why she feels it at all remains a mystery.

His eyes widen and his hands drop away.

“Omega..” Clarke tilts her head curiously, surprised at the formal tone. He looks at her almost reverently. The warrior wets his lips nervously. “Asena...she...she’s my second. Got hurt in the attack. You can feel her? Feel her pain?”

Clarke’s brows furrow as she tries to digest his words. What the First Warrior is saying makes little sense to her, but if this Asena is hurt… perhaps she can assist Nyko.

“Where is she now?” she asks, and her heart breaks a little when his expression turns hopeful. She has no idea what Gustus thinks she can do.

“Healer’s hut. This way.” He walks off so quickly she struggles to keep up.

As they near the healer’s cabin, her pain increases to the point her eyes begin to water. She shouldn’t even be able to walk, she shouldn’t even be conscious, but somehow her body knows this pain is a phantom she can see although it doesn’t really touch her.

Gustus halts a handful of steps from the closed door, shaking his head dejectedly.

“I can’t go in there. He already kicked me out.” He confesses.

Clarke reaches up and runs a finger along a scar on his cheek. “Stand guard then. I don’t want anyone else barging in there.” The warrior nods and turns to face the night, a threatening scowl darkening his features.

The Omega moves to the door and pushes it open, without giving herself time to reconsider. Inside the enclosed space the stench of death is almost unbearable. Nyko is bent over a prone form, working feverishly at a gaping wound. He has rolled his sleeves up beyond his elbows and his forearms are splashed with crimson.

He whirls around enraged, bloodied scalpel brandished towards the door.

“Gustus I told you…” he stops when his eyes meet hers and swallows what he was about to say. “Clarke.”

She ignores him, her attention drawn to his patient, a lithe woman not much older than her. Where one of her arms should be there’s nothing, the limb torn off rather than cut. The end of a broken bone protrudes from the mess of ripped muscle and shattered blood vessels. Nyko’s been trying to stem the bloodflow, before he attempts to fold skin over the stump to seal the gash.

“Asena.” The warrior’s name tumbles from her tongue, and incredibly the woman opens her eyes. They’re blue like hers, but far paler with a touch of grey around the pupils. Clarke steps closer to the bed and her hand is carding through the girl’s hair, she’s sat on the other side of the bed and cradles her close before she really realizes what she’s doing. As soon as her hands are on Asena, the pain lessens, drains away along with the blood.  

She nods towards a stunned Nyko.

“Continue.”

He hurries to obey, sneaking her an open-mouthed look before bending his head to the work his hands are performing. He uses a thin blade to cauterize the blood vessels one by one, but after a brief glance Clarke loses interest. She’s seen her mother perform a similar surgery on an injured worker, albeit with better equipment. Asena’s head is resting in her lap and she brushes matted hair away from the woman’s brow. Their eyes tangle and a soft purr starts at the back of Clarke’s throat, her hands migrating to the woman’s angular face, mapping every inch of the skin.

Asena opens her mouth and murmurs something, but her voice is too hoarse for Clarke to hear clearly. She bends down, putting her ear close to the woman’s mouth. The warrior’s breath is hot with fever, but her words are clear now.

“You came.”

Clarke doesn’t understand but plays along, “of course I did.” The rumbling inside her chest increases. She could not stop it even if she wanted to, and it seems to lull the injured woman, take the pain away. “You will be alright.”

Asena’s lips part in a weak smile, teeth pink with blood,  “ _yu laik spichen plana.”_ [you’re a liar]

Clarke hushes her gently, and traces her cheek with the tip of her nose. Asena nuzzles back, her breath scorching Clarke’s skin before it rattles in her throat and dies with one last wheeze. The blonde pulls back abruptly, fingers frantically searching for a pulse, but as she stares back into Asena’s eyes her hand drops. The beautiful grey-blue of the girl’s eyes is veiled by the gossamer of death.

“Nyko, “ she says hoarsely, then repeats his name louder when he doesn’t stop. “Nyko!”

“What?”

“She’s dead.” Her voice is dead too.

The blade he was clutching clatters to the floor and he reaches for Clarke’s hand.

“Little wolf…”

“Get out.”

He hesitates and she glares at him.

“Get the fuck out.” What he sees inside her eyes sends him packing.

Alone, Clarke rubs at her eyes to keep the tears from spilling out. She combs Asena’s hair with trembling fingers as best as she can, and lingers, unable to leave the girl’s side. She has the fleeting impression of a wolf lifting from the dead warrior’s body, leaping upwards and disappearing when a gust of wind slithers under the door and makes the torches tremble. She shakes her head, logic telling her it was just a swirl of smoke, but her heart doesn’t believe it.

A sob breaks the silence and finally she feels the wolf stir inside, almost timidly. She closes her eyes as tears run down her cheeks and the white’s presence curls around her hurting soul.

When her eyes run dry she stands, and as gently as she can composes the body into a semblance of dignity, before heading outside.

Nyko and Gustus are waiting, together yet apart and when Asena’s mentor sees her he approaches. Clarke readies herself for insults and accusations, but what she doesn’t expect are the pads of his thumbs brushing the last remnants of her tears away tenderly. He looks at her as if he doesn’t understand why she’s crying.

“I am sorry,” her voice almost shatters, “there was nothing to be done.”

“You eased her passing,” his hands don’t stop touching her, and when she tries to avert her gaze, he cups her chin, holding her still. “Nyko told me. I couldn’t have asked for more Clarke.”

On impulse she buries her face against his broad chest and he holds her gingerly, as if her doesn’t really know how to hug. When she’s quieted down, he pulls away.

“I need to prepare her body for the funeral pyre,” he says gravelly, voice regaining its flinty edge. He frowns, and Clarke can see thoughts being carefully considered as his eyes turn pensive before he speaks again.

“Would it be too much, if I asked you to help little wolf?”

His tone softens at the nickname and Clarke smiles sadly.

“I would be honored to help you Gustus.”

He simply nods, as if he’d known that would be her answer all along, and walks past her, ducking inside the healer’s cabin. Clarke turns to follow, heart not as heavy as she’d have imagined, thinking this is the first time she not only feels like herself in days, but also wholly part of the Pack.

* * *

 

Cage releases the knife’s hilt and pulls his hand back slowly, noticing the scratches his father’s nails left on his skin. Without his support the President slumps forward, blood gurgling steadily out of his mouth, and soon the top of the desk is awash with it. Cage snatches the Sky Fallen’s pictures up before they are ruined then turns to stare at his father’s last painting thoughtfully.

He doesn’t remember reaching for the improvised weapon, or plunging it into his father’s chest. Perhaps his rages are becoming so strong they disrupt the proper functioning of his brain. He taps a finger against his lips pensively. With a dismissive shrug he turns back to the body and watches the blood spread out in an expanding circle and drip to the floor with a soft, wet sound. The only other noise is that of the vents clicking mutely as they push clean air into the room. He didn’t get any blood on himself. A small miracle.

Cage doesn’t feel particularly victorious. He doesn’t feel much at all, but maybe numbness is the natural state right after a murder. He’s ordered deaths before and dreamed of tearing Tsing’s throat out on more than one occasion, but he’s never been involved directly in the act.

He stares at his hands and clothes again, wondering how something so intimate didn’t leave a mark on him. Finally he feels something, a shred of amusement that tugs the corner of his mouth upwards in a lopsided grin. It’s amazing really, how the human brain seems to get stuck on inconsequential details at times like these.

Cage walks around the desk, taking care not to step on the blood pooling on the floor tiles, and reaches for an ancient looking phone, dialling an internal number. He gives a series of short, clipped orders and soon enough trusted men appear at the door, led by Emerson.

The soldier takes in the scene without so much as a flinch, even if his eyes widen slightly in shock.

“My father had an unfortunate accident,” Cage says flatly, “get someone down here to clean up and remove his body to the mortuary.” One of the men veers sharply and runs off to see the orders through.

Following his instructions, Emerson posts the rest of the team at the end of the corridor to establish a security cordon.

“I don’t want to be disturbed until the cleaning team arrives,” Cage adds while the men file out. It will take some time before the detail prepares the proper equipment.

The guards’ sharp salutes are accompanied by a chorused “yes President Wallace” and he truly smiles now, savoring the title.

“Now that my father is removed we can proceed with my plan Emerson,” he begins once they are alone and the man stands up straighter.

“Sir, yes sir!”

Cage nods. “I want you to take the Sky Fallen to the Mountain. Make sure they’re properly corralled before you strike. We’ll need all of them.”

“Scaring them behind their wall shouldn’t be too hard a task, sir.” The soldier’s eyes shine with a predatory gleam and a vicious snarl pulls at his lips.

“Use the Twisted Ones if you need. Their collars have been tweaked and you won’t have trouble controlling them now,” Cage doesn’t mention the bunker debacle directly, but his lieutenant has the good grace to look embarassed.

“We’ll also need blood while Dr. Tsing runs tests on the live specimens,” he adds, “so organize a Harvest to one of the Outsiders’ villages. A few lie close enough for that purpose and it will keep the wolves busy. The fact they have not approached the newcomers doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of their presence and I don’t want them to interfere.”

Cage turns back to the drying painting and clasps his hands behind his back, losing himself in the melancholic beauty of his father’s art.

Interpreting the gesture as a dismissal, Emerson turns to go, boots softly scuffling on the floor.

“One more thing.” The soldier glances back, but the new President does not meet his eyes, seemingly engrossed in a close study of the canvas, “make no mistakes this time.”

Emerson shoots a look at Dante Wallace’s crumpled body and the chill that blazes down his back has nothing to do with the cold air of the bunker.


	11. AUTHOR'S NOTE

So I reopened up the outline for this a few days ago, with the intention of getting on to chapter 11 (finally) and find myself faced with quite the writer's bloc on this particular plot. I don't exactly know what it is, if the plot itself (although while there are parts I wanna tweak I am still overall satisfied with it) or simply the fact that rereading what I already have in terms of chapters posted, I feel like if I went back I'd scrape everything and redo it all over again?

I feel like my style, my overall ability to write, have changed - hopefully improved - over the past year, and I find myself quite stuck in the little details I don't like in what I wrote, rather than the parts I feel came out great.

Needless to say, that makes me disheartened, and quite frankly a bit disgusted with myself, and the fact that this state of mind means I am not giving more of a story to people that (judging from subs and such) readers are quite invested into.

I feel terrible- I feel like I let people down. It bothers me because I am still writing, in fact have written quite a lot, and have a number of done fics under my belt and some nearing completion which means that I may be extremely slow but I AM able to finish what I started.

Heck at this point I am not even sure anyone is still interested. After all it's been six months.

This is unfortunately not the only fic I hit a snag on, maybe I bite off more than I can chew, maybe I am just too impatient when it comes to posting. What angers me is that I have outlines for everything because that's how I write, and there are some stories I get stuck on for some reason, while others come out with a snap of my fingers.

I guess this is an unburdening, certainly an apology. I'll leave that outline open, and hopefully finishing off a few more things will help me get back into the grooves and among the wolves,

Kendrene


	12. Burial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mountain steals more souls to feed its hunger. Back at the village, Clarke helps Gustus remember the fallen, then listens in to a private conversation. Meanwhile, Nia sends her spies south.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's a chapter this time! 
> 
> I am thinking to keep the chapters shorter, but have them out more often, seems to be working better for other fics I am writing. Let me know if you are alright with that guys.
> 
> Thank you all for the outpouring of support. Enjoy!

They come to the village at the end of the night, when light barely smudges the horizon in lighter black and sentinels are half asleep, heads drooping on their chests. They divide in squads and surround the houses - no more than a few shacks and one central hall - before each team reports back to Emerson, signalling they are in position. 

He picked this particular settlement because it’s a small outpost, set at the edge of the territory held by the wolves that name themselves Trikru. Usually a border village - even one as small as this one - would be well guarded,  but the clan holding the lands beyond the border is an ally and so the guards are more likely to be a bit lax, not expecting any trouble. 

When he gives the go ahead, a man from each team lifts a slender tube to one shoulder - a weapon that works like a rocket launcher but far more subtle. Emerson hears the  _ whoosh  _ of the weapons going off even inside his environmental suit - the thuds of the projectiles hitting the hard-packed ground inside the village. 

The warriors keeping watch hear the noise too and turn around clearly puzzled, those that bear torches moving towards the center of the settlement to investigate. 

But it’s too late - the fat shell cases have opened upon impact and smoke hazes the air, muting the glow of the torches. One by one the Trikru warriors fall, and those that don’t totter back into view like sleepwalking ghosts and are easily overpowered and knocked out as the teams move forward, slipping deeper into the village. 

One by one each door is opened and the savages smoked out, the sleeping gas quickly affecting everyone. The few kids don’t even wake, but simply pass into a drugged, heavier slumber, and most of the adults do as well. 

The few that totter out of their huts fall to the ground soon enough - unmoving, messy heaps - and standing in the middle of the village Emerson has the impression of walking among the dead. 

His men drag everyone outside by hands or feet and he counts eighteen adults and five kids in total. Emerson knows the numbers are a far cry from what is needed, and his mind goes to the maps he’s studied before leaving the Mountain and the next possible target. 

Perhaps a settlement from another clan - the last thing they need is the cursed one they call Heda hot on their tail. 

He sighs heavily, then reaches for the radio at his waist.

“McPhearson, do you copy?” 

He’s greeted by a hiss of static, then his lieutenant’s voice comes through, tinny from the great distance. 

“Sir?” 

“We have a Harvest ready for pick up,” as Emerson speaks a cart comes into view, two Wulfen pulling it. Despite Cage’s reassurances he doesn’t trust them for anything else right now. The two monsters snap and growl at the sight of the unconscious grounders, tugging at the heavy chains that strap them to the cart.

One of the soldiers fidgets with a small device and blue sparks of electricity burst from the metal collars around the Wulfens’ throats, cutting their thrashing short.

“Where do you want the recovery team to meet you sir?” McPhearson asks. 

“Uhh… let’s do tunnel 15. It’s the closest to where we are. Two hours from now - have them bring supplies for us as well, we’re not done here.” 

They exchange a quick farewell, then Emerson turns his attention to one of his men, who looks harried even behind a gas mask.

“What?” 

“The kids...sir...what do we do with the kids?” 

Emerson looks towards the cart, noticing that all the adults have been loaded onto it, only the five children left on the ground. They are too small to be drained - the oldest perhaps seven or eight - like his own son back under the Mountain. 

For a moment he considers leaving them, then one of his men who had strayed too close to the Wulfen, stumbles back with a panicked wail, a gash in his suit.

The others quickly use the electrified collars to bring the monsters to heed, but it’s too late for the unlucky idiot. Emerson watches him fall to the ground as radiation eats away at the flesh beneath the suit, his screams thankfully muffled by the mask he’s wearing.

“Someone put the bastard out of his misery,” he snarls, and his men snap out of their fascinated paralysis, one of them fixing a combat knife to his rifle before plunging it through the dying soldier’s chest. 

“Sir...the children, sir…” 

“Give them to the Wulfen.” Emerson snaps, ignoring the man’s repulsed gasp. 

Cage did say no witnesses after all.

****************************************

Following Gustus back inside the hut is perhaps one of the hardest things Clarke has ever done. 

She hovers on the threshold for a moment, afraid that once she steps inside Asena’s lingering pain will wash over her again and force her to her knees. 

But when she finally enters the hut, after taking a deep, steadying breath, it feels empty. Even the hint of a presence she thought she felt at the moment of the warrior’s death has dissipated and only the pervasive reek of drying blood remains. 

It’s darker inside, some of the candles Nyko had lit having guttered out. The faint glow of the ones still burning is enough to see by, but the softer light somehow helps Clarke detach from the gruesome scene she knows she’ll find on the small cot. 

Gustus is standing next to it, his face a blank slate as he looks at Asena’s body. But his hands are clenching at his sides and Clarke can read the tension in the straight line of his back. Clarke can almost taste his anger thickening the air around them, to the point each mouthful she breathes descends like fire into her lungs. 

Without thought she closes the distance between them and presses into his back, arms encircling his waist as tightly as she can. 

The coarse fabric of his coat scratches the delicate skin of her mouth and nose as she presses  her face between his shoulder blades, but the wolf within her only cares about how much her packmate hurts, and Clarke responds accordingly. 

Little by little his muscles unclench and he lets out a weary sigh, squeezing both of her hands briefly with one of his. 

Clarke remembers how afraid of Gustus she was just days ago and can’t hold back a smile as the white wolf urges her to touch him, offer him the comfort he’s too stubborn to admit he needs. 

In the end he disentangles gently, and while his face remains unreadable, his eyes hold a grateful light. 

Struggling to hide a bit of amusement, Clarke watches him fidget and shift from foot to foot, evidently unsure how to deal with emotion. He looks on the verge of saying something, or perhaps lift a hand to stroke her cheek but then thinks better of it and his gaze returns to the body they have come back to care for. 

Clarke’s mood turns somber and without a word she moves to the table where Nyko left part of his supplies. 

There is enough water to clean Asena up properly and bandages to hide the wound from sight. Her fingers shake as she pours the water into a chipped basin, and some of the liquid splashes on her wrist.

Clarke thinks they should heat the water up, before remembering that Asena is past caring about such things, and tears well behind her eyelids as she moves to the bed. 

She keeps her eyes lowered, hoping Gustus will not notice, but when he takes the basin from her, along with a length of clean cloth, his fingers linger against hers. 

They work in silence, Clarke wiping flecks of dried blood and dirt from the dead girl’s waxen cheeks while Gustus mops the rest of the blood up as best as he can. 

“Tell me about her?” Clarke asks when the silence becomes too loud inside her ears. He gives her a curious look and she adds, fingers combing Asena’s hair back from her brow. 

“When my father died I had nobody to share memories of him with,” she swallows, trying to push down the lump that formed inside her throat. “There was mom… but she…” 

Clarke sighs and gives a small shrug. Her mother had been beyond hurt, and whenever the blonde had tried to bring her father up it had felt like she was inflicting fresh pain on Abby. In the end she had stopped trying, afraid that her mother - the only person she had left - would end up hating her for not allowing her to move past grief.

She shakes herself from painful memories, realizing that Gustus is watching her. Waiting for her to continue.

“What I am trying to say is that I tried to remember him by myself, but I failed.” 

The words sting bitterly on her tongue, but they are no less true. The first thing Clarke had forgotten had been the way he hugged her, then countless other details from her childhood that had been hazy to begin with. Clarke is sure that with her mother’s help she would remember Jake better, and doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Gustus.

“If you tell me about Asena, I will help you remember her.” 

He frowns and takes so long to answer that Clarke reaches nervously for the blanket still covering  Asena’s legs, straightening it as if the girl could still feel cold. 

“She was a distant cousin of Costia.” Her gaze jerks to meet his at those words, but she keeps quiet, letting him go at his own pace despite the million question that suddenly crowd on the tip of her tongue.

“Heda may have told you she and Costia grew up together,” he finishes covering the gaping wound on Asena’s shoulder, fingers surprisingly gentle, “Asena was a handful of years younger, but she followed her cousin around when she could more like...like a sister.” A sad smile flashes across his lips as he tugs the blanket up and, with Clarke’s help, lays it tenderly over the warrior’s lifeless face. 

“When Costia climbed a tree, Asena had to try too. And so on and so forth with everything from fishing in the stream to learning to toss a javelin.” 

He stands - their work done - and helps Clarke up, steering her towards the door and the night beyond. 

“She broke so many bones trying to match her cousin’s feats… Nyko used to roll his eyes whenever she showed up for healing.”

He snorts, voice tinged with fondness, and places a hand on Clarke’s shoulder, pulling her close for a moment.

“I will tell you more, I promise.” They walk outside and the night’s air smells sweet after the reek of death and suffering, “but not now. Now you are tired and you will go and rest as Heda told you to do.” 

Clarke can’t deny she is tired, her limbs heavy with fatigue and her eyes scratchy with unshed tears. She nods, and Gustus holds her gaze a moment longer before letting her go, apparently satisfied. 

The village is quieter than when she crossed it the first time, and she opens herself to the night, letting it seep into her lungs until its cold blackness soothes away some of her aches. She wants nothing more than the bed in the Alphas’ hut, and to bury under the pelts until the women’s scents saturate her every pore.

But her night it seems is not yet over, for when she walks by the village’s main hall, feet starting to drag a little, Lexa’s voice reaches her ears, carried by the breeze. 

Heda isn’t shouting - not exactly - but the words that Clarke can make out are gnashed between clenched teeth, a low burr heating up the Alpha’s tone. 

Before she is aware of it, Clarke veers off toward the building, her feet carrying her to crouch under a window. 

She can’t help but listen in, somewhat guiltily, and the more she hears, the more rest is forgotten.

****************************************

They have moved to a corner of the room to speak quietly among themselves, Indra keeping a careful eye on the messenger they left sitting at the table. 

Anya fails to hide a small smirk - she understand why the Beta is wary, considering the words he brought - but the man is all caught up in the cold meat and bread Lexa had servants bring in to feed him. The General doubts he is paying them enough attention to eavesdrop. 

“I don’t understand how the vote could be unanimous,” she mutters during a lull in conversation, “I expect this kind of move from the Desert wolves, or Delphi. But Floukru? Broadleaf?” 

“Those are smaller clans,” Indra argues, the way she crosses and uncrosses her arms over her chest a clear sign of tension, “perhaps they hope that if she fails in the Hunt the other clans will remember they didn’t try to stop this attempt at deposing you”

“She won’t fail. As I told you before Indra, she isn’t tainted.” Lexa’s voice is almost flat, the only indication of repressed anger a slight whirr that clings to each word. The Commander isn’t looking at them, but out the window, hands held loosely behind the small of her back. 

On the surface she appears almost relaxed, but Anya has glimpsed the hard flash of her eyes and she knows that all it will take to unleash the Alpha is a wrong word. 

And Indra it seems, is headed in that direction.

“With respect Heda, they want proof. If she can shift in front of them and hunt prey she’ll prove that she is in control of her wolf.” When Lexa finally turns to look Indra in the eye, the Beta takes a hurried step back, exposing her throat with a gasped whine. 

“Word of how she joined the Pack has reached Polis,” the woman speaks diffidently and quickly, as if she believes Heda could be at her throat any moment, “they fear that in your desire to gain a new Omega, you brought the taint within the Coalition.” 

Lexa growls and Indra finishes in a desperate rush, “at this point it would be better to offer them even more than what they seek.” 

“What do you mean?” Anya interjects, not liking the sound of whatever Indra is suggesting in the slightest, “speak plainly. We can’t get more annoyed than we already are.” She adds that with a feral grin that shows her canines and perhaps it is unfair to Indra that she relishes the moment the Beta shrinks in on herselfs a bit further. 

“Mate her in public.” The Beta mumbles, refusing to meet their eyes, “that’ll end the rumors of her being tainted once and for all.” 

Anya feels a burst of admiration for her fellow General, despite the rage Indra’s words spark deep inside her gut. She opens her mouth to speak, but Lexa cuts her off, green eyes darkening with something far more dangerous than anger. Something primal and ageless that haunts the forgotten corners of the forest.

“Clarke isn’t a bitch to be paraded and displayed at the Ambassadors’ request,” Lexa’s voice is terribly cold, “she is my mate.” 

“Our mate,” Anya deadpans just as flatly, hackles rising. She is about to add more, but a choked gasp coming from outside the window cuts through their argument. 

It seems someone decided to try and spy on them after all.

****************************************

Valka will never get used to the southern woods.

Up North where the Queen rules, the forests are made of pine and fir with little underbrush beneath so that one’s line of sight can span unhindered and an approaching enemy is readily spotted. But here…

Here there are oaks and willows among the pine and thick bushes wrap around tree trunks, turning every inch of ground into an ideal hiding spot. And even though her nose tells her that she and Skoll are alone, Valka cannot help but turn her head this way and that every few steps, her shoulders tensing whenever an animal scurries across their path.

“Quit fretting,” his voice is a low growl, but then he always sounds that way, “I can’t smell Trikru for miles.” 

Valka is grateful that she is walking behind him, so that he can’t see the grimace she directs his way. It’s easy for someone to be boastful and self assured when men use their name to frighten misbehaving children. 

Skoll has earned his ritual scars and dark reputation a hundred times over, while her own cheeks are still as smooth as the day she picked up a sword for the first time. She lifts a hand and runs it across her cheeks almost resentfully - she’s been over the border on dozens of missions and still her  _ Kwen  _ has not granted her the honor. 

On the one hand Valka understands that her smooth face, combined with dark hair and green-brown eyes, make it easy to pass as Trikru. On the other, she can’t help her mounting anger. How many more trips will it take for her to be considered not a scout, but a proper warrior? 

They keep marching on in silence, deeper and deeper into Trikru territory. A small stream snakes in and out of sight on their right, marking another border - between Trikru and Broadleaf- and they follow it while keeping back enough from its banks as to not be spotted. 

Suddenly Skoll signals a stop, dropping to a crouch behind a fallen trunk, green with moss. 

Ahead, Valka notices as she goes to his side that the woods give way to a large clearing, and she can catch a telltale glint of a metal roof among the dark emerald of the tree leaves. 

From the little she can see of it, the village is rather small, an outpost really. Still there should be people about with the sun high in the sky, but she hears nothing. 

It’s too quiet and when she exchange a wondering look with Skoll, she knows he doesn’t like it either. 

“Something’s not right.”

He grunts, eyes fixed up ahead.

“A raid?” She suggests, but she already knows it cannot be. Raids leave smoke behind, hanging heavy in the air for hours after the fact, along with the tang of blood. Both scents are missing, the only things Valka can smell resin from the trees around them and the muskiness of rich soil. 

“Let’s take a closer look.” Skoll determines, standing slowly when it becomes apparent that the village lies empty.

Regardless they approach with caution, hands half drawing weapons as they leave the shade of the trees. Valka squints at the change of light, blinking a few times to help her eyes adjust. 

Once she takes in their surroundings she thinks she’d rather be blinded by the sun’s glare. 

A massacre would be less upsetting she believes as they go from one empty hut to the next, entering the first few, then just ducking their heads inside for cursory glances when it’s clear there’s nothing to find. 

It’s almost like the villagers upped and left in the middle of the night, the only signs someone ever lived there an upturned pot kicked over in haste and the disturbed furs laying haphazardly on pallets.

Valka is ducking out of the last shack when she sees Skoll calling her over. She jog across the clearing, following his gaze to a pile of bodies, broken and mauled in a way that makes her think of a bear, or a pauna. 

Children’s bodies. 

The violence is so unexpected after the village’s eerie atmosphere, that she takes a step back, one of her hands clamping over her mouth. 

The next moment Valka’s bent over, retching noisily until it feels she will bring up every last meal she’s ever had. 

They should never have come South.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter. Bellamy's deception is uncovered. Raven and mines - Clarke has something to say to her Alphas.

**Author's Note:**

> I know wolf is a neutral noun, but to distinguish Trikru people in wolf form from the Twisted Ones, I have decided to align the gender of the animal to that of the human character.
> 
> TRANSLATIONS:
> 
> Yu gonplei ste odon: your fight is over
> 
> Ai badan yu, Heda: I serve you, Commander


End file.
